


Nights in white satin - sweet dreams

by ThreeMagpies



Category: Revolution (TV)
Genre: Dreams, F/M, Mystery, Smut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-25
Updated: 2016-02-28
Packaged: 2018-04-23 08:45:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 13
Words: 56,895
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4870582
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThreeMagpies/pseuds/ThreeMagpies
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A Revolution fic:  Bass Monroe/Charlie Matheson, Charloe; Mention of characters from the show. </p><p>The story is based on prompt #97 from the Orgy Armada’s fan fic all Ships challenge…<br/>After the Tower, and before he found New Vegas, Bass travelled through the wilderness heading towards Philadelphia, aiming to see what was left of the Monroe Republic… </p><p>Somewhere along the way, something happened that made him wonder about the power of dreams, and why Charlie Matheson had turned up in his…</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Author’s note:  
> Hi there and thanks so much for having a look at this… hope you enjoy … ☺ I took a little time off to recharge my Charloe batteries and exercise my writing muscles with some stories about other characters in the Revolution universe - and I really loved it. I must admit though that I love writing for Bass and Charlie again ☺
> 
> I don’t own any part of Revolution and am writing this purely for love of the show and its characters.

The faded and broken neon sign announced that the Mountain View still had vacancies… The sprawling wind and weather worn hotel/motel sat just back off the road heading out of a deserted tourist town with a glorious view somewhere between Colorado and what used to be the Monroe Republic – and it would do just fine, thank you very much, in fact it looked pretty damn good to a ragged and shell shocked ex President, ex General, ex whatever… 

Bass Monroe picked the lock on one of the faux mountain log cabins set in the overgrown gardens out back of the hotel and dragged his weary self in, shutting the door behind him and carefully lifting his water bottles into the sink. He’d been travelling through the days and nights for close to two weeks now since Miles set him loose and he badly needed somewhere safe to sleep – well he hoped to sleep, lightning cracked the sky and mushroom clouds bloomed on his horizons every single fucking time he closed his eyes… 

He’d seen the news written large on broadsheets out of Texas, and had heard it on the lips of every man, woman and child he’d come across in every two bit town since… Philly and Atlanta were gone; nuked for crying out loud… And it had to be something to do with Randall Flynn, Rachel Matheson – and whatever had happened in the fucking Tower. His beautiful city was gone, burned to ashes; his staff, his troops, the storehouses, treasury, Independence Hall, his collection of Civil war artefacts, his books - his favourite horses, all turned to radioactive fucking dust.

It was all anyone was talking about, and now they were saying that he did it; Bass didn’t know who started that rumour yet, but somehow Sebastian Monroe had been promoted to public enemy number one. He shook his head, face set and eyes hard; his money was on Randall Flynn having something to do with it, the guy was a snake… 

After checking the bedroom, bath (with spa) and out the back window for any signs of life (none) he tossed his backpack onto one of the faded and dusty lounge chairs and stretched to get out the kinks out of his shoulders and neck. Stopping in front of the mirror on the hall robe doors he ran a hand though his dirty curls and along the scruff that disguised his jaw… The dirty, dishevelled man with haunted eyes looking back at him was a stranger, someone he almost didn’t recognise, and if he couldn’t, well, maybe no one else would…

He shrugged and unclipped his sword belt, placing it in easy reach wherever he was in the room. One of the first things he’d done after Miles had set him free and told him to run, had been to find some weapons, and a couple of unsuspecting militia deserters had donated theirs when he caught them napping, along with their packs, food, lamps, a pack of playing cards and an old Playboy. It had been so easy he was almost ashamed to think that he’d been paying them a wage… 

He looked around… The afternoon sun, struggling to get through the dirty windows and decaying drapes, caught floating dust motes in its beams and lent the place a sort of romantic haze. Strangely, the place seemed to have escaped being looted over the years since the blackout, the cabin looked completely untouched, ready for the next guests… There were glasses, cups, plates and cutlery in the cupboards and drawers, cleaning supplies under the sink, and little sachets of sugar, coffee, tea bags on the courtesy stand by the kettle, a small, ornate sign welcoming him to a Mountain View deluxe honeymooner cabin, tv and phone on the wall; Bass felt a moments deep nostalgia for times gone when this was all…normal…

He shrugged, took out the small oil lamps and flint that were part of his booty and lit them, closing the blinds, drawing the curtains and throwing the bolt on the door. He’d eaten earlier, and finding somewhere safe for the night was the priority with bears and wolves and other things roaming in increasing numbers in the mountains and rapidly spreading forests. He was doing ok in the wild, all things considered, but even Bear Grills had taken a break every now and then…

He went into the bedroom, taking his gear with him… A king size bed took up a decent percentage of the room and when he stripped off the dust layered sheets and duvet the mattress looked almost new, no sign of rats, mice…he couldn’t believe his luck…

Even the memory foam pillows were still good. He grinned; they deserved their lifetime guarantee. Then, and this time he had to admit to being impressed, he found two sets of white, satin sheets, still in their just laundered plastic wrap, still white, as good as any he’d enjoyed as President Monroe and he made the bed up again, with fresh sheets, adding a couple of the blankets from the cupboard for extra warmth against the cool mountain night...

He decided that the bed warranted his having a wash first…

In the bathroom there were cakes of soap, little heart, spade, club and diamond shaped tablets, individually wrapped, with the scent of something expensive still clinging to them; tubes of guest shampoo and body wash, no toothpaste… robes hanging on the hooks behind the door… courtesy slippers in little bags – and toilet paper, the ends folded into points...

He used two of his bottles of clean river water, washing the dirt of weeks off his face and body, and watching the brown water disappear down the sink with the fascination due a strange phenomenon… Then he shook out one of the robes, poured himself a nightcap from his last bottle of whisky, sipped it while he did a last perimeter check, put his knife and swords in easy reach and turned out the lamps.

The moonlight sent shafts of silvery light in through the blinds across the bed and striped his skin in stark blacks and whites as he peeled off the robe and relaxed back on the cool satin covered mattress, the softest thing he’d laid down on in weeks, his bones and muscles not quite believing that it was real, unclenching, relaxing in gradual waves of sheer, fucking relief… 

Then, when his body felt like melted butter, he just lay there, the roughened skin of his hands and fingers catching on the shimmering, smooth, cool fabric of the satin sheets as he spread himself out over the luxurious width of the bed. He lay there, just breathing in and out, listening to the quiet, getting to know the sounds, the feel of the place; the gentle shush and song of the wind through pines, a night bird, the clear notes startlingly beautiful, the rustle and grunt of deer, foraging; the moonlight, dappled with patterns of leaf and branch... 

And gradually, his body grew heavy, breath slower, his thoughts slowing to a crawl under the weight of exhaustion, the lightning flashes far away, for now anyway, over the horizon, ghostly echoes… 

Then sometime after that, he slept.

…………………………………………

The next thing he knew, she was there, his heavy, full cock told him she was there, his arms knew she was there too, his body knew she was on top of him, her skin smooth and warm, lithe body muscled and strong from the hunting, walking, fighting. Her legs woven between his, the lightly hair roughened skin of her calves catching on his own, sending whispers of sensation from his toes up to his lips, sending them searching for hers… Strands of her long, moon bleached, brown blond hair caught on his scruff as she moved, sliding across his face and throat like long, soft fingers…She stretched her length against him, sighing, her hands tracing the heavy muscles of his arms, her soft breasts, nipples pebbled and teasing, cushioned against his chest, her pussy, all soft curls and wet, luscious folds, clit a firm nubbin against his belly… 

His cock rose, hard and ready, filling the hot valley between her legs, her ass cheeks parting around him like warm, soft flesh pillows… He caught her face in his hands, and damn, she felt real; solid, her face that of the girl he’d saved in the Tower, although the lines of loss and sadness were deeper around her eyes… ‘Charlie?’ 

Her deep, moon grey eyes fell crashing into his and he felt a rush of anger, frustration, loneliness - and a despair that almost matched his own…

‘Monroe? What the fuck?’ She pushed away from him, hands on his chest, her legs struggling for purchase on the soft bed, the satin sheet falling away like pale wings above her… Then she stopped moving, her eyes glinting down at his in the soft light… ‘This is a dream… isn’t it? I’m not here, I’m… So it doesn’t matter that you’re him, does it…’ She circled her hips over his, her warm, wet pussy stroking over his cock, making him gasp with the feel of it… ‘It doesn’t matter, I can do whatever I want…’ She grinned down at him, the look on her face somehow feral, hungry, tongue snaking out over her full lips and her eyes intense, fascinated, on him… ‘So what are you anyway? Some kind of weird wet dream?’

‘Damned if I know…’ He grinned back and moved his hips, just to test things out, his cock head searching for her core, finding her slick and ready, her legs stretching out wider, opening her up for him… So he slid inside, feeling her stretch out around him, tight, hot, delicious… ‘but I’ll be whatever you want if we can keep doing this…’

She gasped, her eyes closing, her hands going to his shoulders, hips sinking down over him…

He ran his hands over the smooth, muscled thighs and up to her hips, his fingers gripping, holding her there while he pushed his cock up into her in hard, jerking thrusts that had them both panting, breath coming faster…

She laughed, a little breathless…’in the Tower, when you killed that guy for me? For a moment then, I wondered … what it would be like…’ her eyes caught his and she squeezed her inner muscles, her elastic walls tightening even more on his cock, then releasing… ‘To fuck you, Monroe…’ She tightened again, her eyes drifting shut; then she opened them again, searching for his, finding them…‘Did you want me too?’ 

Then she gasped as he stretched his thumbs over the sensitive flesh of her belly to her clit, circling and playing there… his hands big enough to span the distance while keeping her held hard on him, thrusting up into her fast and hard… Forget gentle, she was taking everything he could give… ‘The thought… did… cross my mind…once or twice, Charlotte…’ 

Her head fell forward, her hands clutching his shoulders, short nails digging into his flesh and she moaned, her breasts swinging above him in time with his thrusts like beautiful ripe fruit…

He wanted more of her, wanted her beneath him, so he swung her round, their bodies sliding easily over the satin sheets until she was there, her hair flung out over the pillows, her eyes wide, burning up at him, her breasts pink tipped and so, so tempting… He bent down to suckle at one, then the other, his tongue leaving them gleaming, beautiful, his teeth grazing the sensitive flesh until she cried out, her eyes rolling back and her neck curving… he kissed her there next, slow pulling kisses that would leave marks if this was real….

He slowed his thrusts down… going slower, deeper… then holding himself inside her tight warmth, ripples and streaks of bright pleasure flowing from his cock to his toes… 

She laughed, the movements rippling down to where their bodies joined…’If I’d known it’d be like this I’d have dreamed about you before, Monroe…’ 

He lifted one of her knees so he could fuck her harder, deeper, and he could feel his balls tighten as he got closer… ‘Dream about me as often as you like, Charlie, please…’ Hell if this was a dream, they could do whatever they wanted, right? He could feel her getting closer too…

She must have read his mind, or something…

She reached down, circling her clit with her thumb, her fingers brushing his cock as he thrust in and out of her… ’Don’t pull out, Monroe…’ her voice was hoarse, her breath coming in short panting gasps…

He gazed down at her, the moonlight making her look like some magical creature lying there, her eyes wild and excited, her lips full and luscious, open, tongue flickering out… and then he saw the moment she came, saw her face go still, her eyes wide as she stopped breathing while the wave took her and for a moment he was lost in the beauty of it, of her; and then his own climax came in a rushing, bright explosion of colours and release as he emptied himself deep, deep inside her in white hot spurting thrusts of heat and sweet, sweet, sweet relief…

He collapsed, sliding down beside her, his body lying next to hers, their legs twined together, and his arms cradling her against him. 

And for a little while, he held her, and she lay with him and Bass felt a sort of peace, something that he’d almost given up on, and maybe she felt the same… 

‘Monroe?’

‘Yeah?’

‘That was…a pretty good dream, wasn’t it?’

He nodded, a laugh bubbling up, because, damn, he felt good for the first time in… well, a long fucking time…’yeah, the best I’ve had in a while…’

She chuckled…’me too…’ she looked up at him, her fingers reaching up to stroke over his scruff…

He must have fallen asleep then, maybe, because the next thing he knew, the first rays of sunshine were coming in through the window, warm on his skin, shining in his eyes… and he was alone, the white satin crumpled and folded around him like a soft cocoon, wet in places…

He grinned; stretching out in the sun. What a dream… Maybe the ghost of honeymooners past had soaked into the walls of this place or something? And what on earth had made him dream about Charlie Matheson? He shrugged and reached for his drinking bottle… There was no denying that she was a gorgeous woman and there was a spark about her that had caught him by the balls in Philly first, then in the Tower. If she’d been anyone else he’d be prepared to knock down the competition and make a play… But, there was the little matter of her being Miles niece – and Rachel’s daughter… 

That didn’t seem to matter to his imagination though, and the dream played over and over in his mind as he lay there in the soft as her skin satin sheets, hands stroking his cock like he was a love struck teenager… and damn, if he didn’t hope like hell that she’d visit him again…soon…

…………………………………………

Camped for the night somewhere on the road to Willoughby, Texas, with Aaron, Miles and her mom, Charlie Matheson woke with a start and her hand down her pants, her clit pulsing and pussy feeling heavy and full and the afterglow of a really fucking good orgasm still floating through her… She looked around, almost expecting in some weird transposition of time and place to find him beside her… 

The dream had left her feeling exhilarated and vaguely guilty. She was supposed to hate him, wasn’t she? So what the fuck was she doing dreaming about having amazing sex with Sebastian Monroe?

…………………………………………


	2. Nights in white satin - a new favourite sin...

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A Revolution fic: Bass Monroe/Charlie Matheson, Charloe; Blackout AU. Miles Matheson, Rachel Matheson, Aaron Pittman, mention of other characters from the show. This follows ‘Nights in white satin – sweet dreams.’ After the Tower, and before he found New Vegas, Bass travelled through the wilderness heading towards Philadelphia, aiming to see what was left of the Monroe Republic… Somewhere along the way, something happened that made him wonder about the power of dreams, and why Charlie Matheson kept turning up in his…

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author’s note:  
> Hi there and thanks so much for having a look at this… hope you enjoy … ☺ The story is based on prompt #53 from the Orgy Armada’s Revolution, The Second Coming and follows on from my previous story: Nights in white satin – sweet dreams…
> 
> I don’t own any part of Revolution and am writing this purely for love of the show and its characters.

The morning after he dreamed that Charlie Matheson turned up in his bed, Bass lay there thinking about how fucking good she had felt, until the needs of his stomach – and his bladder - became too loud to ignore… 

So he got up, did what he needed to do then took a couple of towels, a robe and some soap from the cabin (as well as his pack, empty bottles and weapons - just in case…) and wandered down the hilly slope behind the motel to find the river… A short walk following the sound of rushing water led him to a sheltered weir where water rippled and tumbled over piled and worn smooth rocks, settling into a deep pool shaded by willows and reeds before heading on down the mountain in a series of falls that disappeared into a hazy forested distance... 

Then he treated himself to a real bath, the river water cool, clean and silken on his skin, dirty soap bubbles floating down stream as he rinsed himself, the sun making little dancing rainbows where it touched them... 

He scrubbed his skin and hair until he glowed pink and the water ran clear, then stood thigh deep at the edges of the pool, feeling the sun warm on his skin and, enjoying being really fucking clean for the first time in forever. His hair felt a couple of pounds lighter without the dirt of weeks, the curls bouncing like little corkscrews as they dried and as he looked down, a light breeze caught the little hairs on his chest, legs and groin, outlining his body in a golden brown halo and sending little waves of sensation sliding across his skin and goose bumps rippling down his arms and legs… 

His cock hung heavy and half erect against the soft, damp cushions of his balls, and the breeze felt like her fingers on him… He felt blood rush there at the thought and reached down, stroking a hand up and down the suddenly much, much harder and thicker column of flesh and grinned, he figured every man must love his own cock; it was like another little person, living between his legs, a demanding, one track minded little person…

He patted it affectionately; down boy… then let go and stretched, yawning; he’d have more time later, he wanted to get some work done first… But damn, he felt like a kid, playing in the river and wishing she was there, wishing for golden hair, that beautiful, sweetly angled face, her full mouth and clever hands, her strong, lithe body and a pussy that felt like tight, wet heaven; a brand new sin for Sebastian Monroe…

His cock shifted up a gear, really hoping for some action this time and he ducked under the water again to cool off but it didn't matter, his reflection was still three legged when he stood up... 

He laughed and got busy washing the clothes he’d been living in for weeks, rubbing and thumping them against the rocks to get rid of at least some of the ingrained dirt and grime. He had no other clothes at the moment – both of the militia guys had been way too short for any of theirs to fit - but damn he was over wearing these... Down stream, long slicks of grease, oil and the dust and dirt of the road floated away as he worked, harsh and ugly against the backdrop of the clear water and sandy riverbed…

The jeans, shirt and threadbare socks went over a couple of shrubs to dry… His boots would just have to stay smelly, and his old uniform jacket the same. The insignia and epaulettes were long gone and the collar was torn off, it looked a far cry from the stiff, starched uniform of the President of the Republic…

Then he did some sword practice to dry off, not bothering with a robe, his body nude, hard muscled and pale on the wide, flat, grass covered riverbank… 

He felt good, the long days of walking, and the steady diet of mostly protein with none of the soft luxuries of life as a damn desk jockey President, had left him toned, strong and fit. The familiar, studied movements of sword play felt good too, his muscles flexing and relaxing, limbs moving in smooth arcs and controlled thrusts, bending, stretching, turning, slicing… The formal gestures and repetition steadying his mind, calming his thoughts… 

Then he spread the towels out and lay down on the bank, slipping into a sun soaked, sun dazzled daze, his limbs heavy, full, eyes half shut, the light clouds overhead floating like small white galleons…

And suddenly, she was there, lying on her side next to him, the sun shining through the damp, stringy curling strands of her hair as it hung over his face, because she was leaning over, looking at him… 

He reached up and touched a golden brown strand… It was soft; and damn, she felt real…

‘Monroe?’ She was naked, like him, but her skin was cool and a little damp…

‘Charlie, you came back…’

‘Its warm here…’ she lay on top of him, her body stretching out over his, her breasts pebble tipped cushions on his chest, her leg sliding over his… ‘You feel so warm…’ She pulled her head back so she could see him, her eyes wide, wondering… ’It was raining, and cold, so we went into an old barn for shelter; I must have fallen asleep…’ Then her hips moved over him, her pussy lips catching on his cock and she gasped, her tongue darting out, flickering over those full, pink lips… 

Bass couldn’t believe his eyes, his senses… ‘So where are you? When you aren’t here?

She moved a little so that her clit was touching his cock, sliding up and down his length, her wet folds feeling like a benediction, a silky, hot, slippery wonder…. ‘I don’t want to think about that, Monroe, I want to keep thinking about this…’ Then she reached down and her fingers wrapped around his cock like the wet dream that this had to be…

He laughed, happy to play along…’ok…whatever you want,’ he could feel the towels, the fabric rough against his back and ass, and he could feel all of her, her skin smooth, except for her feet, her toes calloused, hard, the rough skin of her soles brushing against his calves as she kissed her way down his chest, her tongue leaving a cool trail as she went lower…

‘You taste of sun, and soap, Monroe…’

His hands were playing with her hair, fingers sliding through it to her scalp, massaging the tight oval of her skull as she… finally… got to his groin, her eyes slanted up at him through the long, tangled waves… ‘I just had a bath…’ his voice was hoarse; expectation and anticipation stealing his breath away…

She swept her hands up to play with his nipples then reached for his cock with that lovely mouth, agile tongue slipping between her lips and tracing a long line from his cock head down to where his balls lay, aching for her attention… Then she kissed her way back up to his tip with light, teasing kisses that had him panting, his hips straining towards her…

She laughed against his flesh, the sound buzzing and vibrating through him….

His balls tightened, his hands spreading over her head and the muscles of his butt and thighs tensing as he tried desperately to keep from coming all over her face like a schoolboy with his first girl… 

Then she took him into her mouth, and the soft, melting warmth inside as she took him in deep, again and again, her lips surrounding him, sliding up and down, and the way her tongue felt as she swept it over the sensitive glans on the way up almost brought him undone again…

He laughed, a hoarse, gasping sound…’Charlie… I’m not going to last long if you keep doing that…’

She stopped for a moment, her eyes wicked blue as she lifted her mouth off him and met his eyes… ‘This is my dream, so I can do anything I want…’ she licked her lips… ‘And you taste nice….’ But then she sat up, straddling him, sliding along his cock until he was lined up with her entrance, then slipping down over him, her tight walls gripping so tight, so good… 

He watched her eyes go hazy, her lips part… and he slid his hands out of her hair, down over her shoulders to her breasts, cupping the firm, pink tipped globes, his thumbs circling her nipples, letting her set the pace…

She leaned forward, her eyes staying on his, her hands on his chest, her hips moving up and down over him, a slow, easy rhythm that had them both breathing hard, together…

‘You’re a gorgeous woman, Charlie, and I don’t know how you’re doing this but I’m glad you did…’ 

Her eyes narrowed, and instead of being pleased at the compliment, her lips set in an angry line and she picked the pace up, the walls of her cunt gripping him tight, her fingers clenching on the muscles of his chest…’I don’t feel gorgeous, Monroe, back there I’m hungry, and dirty and fucking tired of walking… and I’m even more fucking tired of my mom being crazy, and Miles drinking…’ tears welled up in the blue eyes…’and Aaron looking scared all the time…’

Tears were falling down her cheeks, leaving silver trails behind them and she looked away from him, pausing for a moment, her ass cheeks soft against his thighs, she met his eyes again, hers full of storms ‘I hate it all, I hate my life…’ Then she picked up the pace again, pounding onto him, faster, harder, furious, her body tense, almost as though she was fighting, not him, but everything, everyone else… 

Bass let her do what she needed to do; he figured he owed her that, and more, after all he’d been part of making this world that she had to live in, part of fucking everything up for her, and everyone else…. and then he lost sight of the thought, lost sight of everything except the girl riding him, her slick warmth gripping him tight, the friction building between them, her skin hot now, sweat beading and running down between her breasts, her teeth biting into her bottom lip, and his own climax coming at him like a train down a mountain… 

Then she went still, her breath coming in short, panting bursts…. her fingernails digging into the skin of his chest as she spasmed around him…

He let himself go then too, emptying himself inside her in warm spurts, hoping that maybe he could warm her from the inside too; that she’d know he’d been waiting for her… Then he caught her as she fell, held her as she lay on him, her body limp, too exhausted to speak, to move, her shoulders shaking every now and then with sobs that he hoped had nothing to do with him…

She was quiet after a while, just letting him hold her, her cheek resting under his chin. The sun was getting warmer above them and her hair was dry, her skin damp with sweat now against his, one of her legs flung across him and one hand resting over his heart...

He almost felt like crying himself, she’d sounded so desperate, as though she meant what she said…. 

Then he realised that she was fading, the outlines of her body wisping at the edges like smoke… shit… she was going… He put his mouth close to the vanishing shadow of her ear, pitching his voice loud, hoping that she’d hear…’I’ll be here, Charlie, come back when you can, ok?’ 

Then even her shadow was gone... and he was alone on the riverbank, the breeze raising cool goose bumps on the lines of sweat she’d left on his skin…

Damn it... what was happening?  
……………………………………….

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AN: I hope you liked this, there’ll be more of this story soon…☺


	3. I'll turn into a monster for you...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author’s note:   
> Hi there and thanks so much for having a look at this, and for liking it enough to keep reading… I hope you enjoy … ☺ The story is based on prompt #277 (Monster..) from the Orgy Armada’s Revolution, the Second Coming and follows on from my previous story: Nights in white satin – sweet dreams, a new favourite sin… ongoing thanks go to LoveForTheStory who is kind enough to be a lovely sounding board and who made this story a whole lot better!! Thanks Love, you’re awesome, xx 
> 
> I don’t own any part of Revolution and am writing this purely for love of the show and its characters.

He couldn’t stop thinking about her... 

The strain and despair in her voice and the desolation in those lost blue eyes haunted him…

Where was she? And what had she meant about Rachel being crazy? He’d never quite understood Miles’ feelings for Rachel, his brother’s wife; and he'd felt sorry for Ben being stuck in the middle like that... Bass found Rachel to be cold, calculating; brilliant of course… but crazy? He sniffed… he’d always known that she knew much, much more than she was telling about the blackout, maybe she’d finally noticed all the blood on her hands…

Then he frowned, Miles could fight just as well drunk as sober, sometimes better – but the way Charlie had said it… it sounded almost like he was drinking all the time, and that would take it’s toll. And the other guy with them. Staypuft? He hadn’t looked like much of a fighter; so if Miles was out to it, was Charlie trying to look out for all of them - on her own? Was that why she’d sounded so desperate? 

In Philadelphia he’d seen her bravery, her determination to look after her brother, the vibrant life in her when she stood up to him, to Strausser… but just now, when she was there in his arms, it was like she’d almost given up hope, given up trying… 

He paced up and down, past the spot where he’d been lying when she appeared, his gaze returning to the towels still laid out there, hoping…

Or maybe he was just imagining the whole thing, had finally gone right over the edge? Although looking back, the Monroe he’d been back in Philly seemed to be the insane one; driven by betrayal, loneliness and grief to do things to people he’d cared about that weighed on his soul now like boulders… 

But then Miles had called him brother again, which didn’t heal anything really or bring anyone back, but had meant a whole damn lot, and maybe had brought him back from the brink, even when everything else was falling apart… 

The upshot was, he didn’t feel insane, in fact he felt more himself than he had for a long time, even with everything that had happened, and as for the Republic, he’d never cared about that, didn’t care that it was gone - except that things seemed about to get a whole lot worse for everyone if the rumours about the Patriots were even halfway right…

Whatever, it was family that was important and Miles was his family, and so, by that logic, was she…

And she’d felt so real, so solid; so damn good in his arms... He could still smell her on him for fuck’s sake, still feel her lips; still taste her… So he waited at the river while his clothes dried, eating what was in his pack when he got hungry, wanting to be where she could find him if…. No, when… she came back... 

And as he got dressed, his pants and shirt stiff and strangely unfamiliar clean and smelling of sunshine and soap, he paused, a button half done; that’s what she’d said too, that he smelled of sunshine and soap… 

What the fuck was happening?

He needed to focus on something, anything other than her… so he got busy with more sword practice, his movements choppy and restless this time, his earlier calm turned to jagged thrusts, harsh parries, his blades slicing the air with the sound of whips…

But she didn’t come back…

And when the sun started to slip down the other side of the sky and the air became cooler with the promise of evening he gathered his crap and headed back to the cabin… At least he had a comfortable bed for the night, and he wasn’t forgetting that she’d come to him there too… 

He smiled then, the old Moody Blues song playing like a soundtrack in his head, Charlie Matheson had given him his own night in white satin… 

Back at the cabin, he dumped his pack on the wooden slat table set outside the door and sat on the bench seat, leaning back against the wall, a foot propped up on the tabletop. He ate again, some more jerky, not bothering with a fire this time, watching the moon rise against a gradual and gorgeous blanket of stars that filled the sky with Van Gogh swirls as he stared at them so hard his eyes started to blur… 

He had a drink from his canteen to rinse his mouth and listened to the sounds of the night, the rustle of smaller animals and birds in the bushes and tall trees around him, the breeze cool but not unpleasant… He leaned back, his eyes gradually drifting shut…

……………………………………

He woke? Somewhere else; the air was different, it was humid, damp, the smell of wet grass filtering up from the ground squelching beneath his boots and down from the leaves and branches that hung, dense and crowded above his head. He could hear the small sounds of water dripping from leaf to ground and when he looked down a puddle of water in the muddy ground showed him his own dark reflection, foreshortened and dramatic… He checked his belt and pockets, swords, knives and gun were still there, good… He also had his canteen in the breast pocket of his jacket, and his little flask of whiskey; comforting, at least he’d have something to drink, wherever the fuck he was…

So the dreaming thing worked both ways then? So where was she?

Overhead, beyond the tree line a few clouds raced each other, the moon turning their edges silver then grey then back to silver as they moved across it… The trees around him were different too, taller, thicker and he was in amongst them, hidden in their shadows…

There was a building a couple of hundred yards ahead of him in the open field, a barn maybe; looming dark against the sky. The big double doors on the side closest to him were open and the golden glow of lamplight coming from inside was a stark, bright contrast to the dark with several figures visible, silhouetted against it, the glint of moon and lamplight bright on sword edges, gun barrels, belt buckles, and the rough edges of torn and makeshift clothing. 

His mind searched for a match to the description – War clan? Deserters? Militia? It could make a difference in fighting style, weapons… and as he got closer, the sounds of fighting, swords clashing, men’s voices, yelling, a woman’s scream echoed out into the night towards him.

Shit, she said they’d gone to a barn for shelter...

He hurried, darting from cover to cover, his eyes darting round; checking for any other hostiles and not seeing any, so they had to all be in or by the barn… 

He moved, silent, up behind the three waiting at the door and sliced and diced his way through them before they knew he was there, their bodies falling onto the wet grass without a sound.

Then he crept inside the big space, the lamplight throwing crazy shadows on the high metal walls, storage bay walls stretching back into dark perspective along one side of the barn… 

He saw Miles first…

There were seven…no eight bodies on the ground, and his brother was surrounded, face tense, his attention split between fighting two swordsmen, the six more gathered around waiting their turn and something else, his gaze darting out into the shadows…. Bass could just see what had to be Rachel crouched on the ground behind him, her arms round her head in a sort of foetal position, Staypuft on the ground in front of her, collapsed and limp, unconscious?

He searched, eyes frantic…where was Charlie? 

Then he saw more of the rough looking men, further into the shadows on the other side of the barn. Three of them were standing, gathered around a furiously struggling Charlie who was down on her knees, another man behind her, holding her arms, forcing her down and yet another in front, pulling at her legs to get hold of her feet… 

Then, somehow, she looked up and saw him… her eyes opening wide and a sort of blazing hope bursting to life in them… 

Ok… He didn’t care what this was, dream or not, but none of these guys were walking out of here, especially not the two who had touched her…

First, he had to get Miles out of the woods, then between them they could take care of the rest… 

Bass felt himself fall into the zone, his mind planning moves, his body executing them without further thought, almost like a dance, instinctive, natural; he was very good at killing… He took out four of the six guys around Miles in a lightening flash of double scythes and graceful turns, heads rolling (almost) as well as a hand and a few fingers, blood spurting in bright lamp-lit fountains. 

Miles saw him, his eyes widening for a moment in shocked recognition – and relief? Then he was back on the job, his sword flying with renewed fury and purpose. 

Bass left him with four – easy odds - while he dealt with the bastards around Charlie. 

All five of them were looking at her, not paying attention to anything else… The guy in front had pulled her legs out and was sitting on her thighs, getting to work undoing her belt, and the guy behind her was kneeling on her arms, and had ripped open her belly shirt, his hands roughly kneading her breasts. The other three men were crowding closer, their faces avid and bestial, hands clenched.

Bass grinned, although his eyes were hard, implacable – he’d take a bet she had let them do it, to keep them all distracted – good girl… He glanced back; Miles had finished off another two, with two more to go… so, ok, he rolled his shoulders and cracked his neck, time to do this…

He moved forward, first guy machete/throat, and at almost the same moment, a belly thrust with his sword for the second, then the third… a slice up into the heart with the machete, and by then he was behind Charlie and had slid his arm around the throat of the bastard with his hands on her breasts, pulling him choking, eyes bulging and his windpipe crushed, up and off her. 

As soon as she was free, Charlie burst into action, a hand snapping forwards with fingers stiff, jabbing hard, into the eyes of the man sitting on her legs as he looked up in shock at what was happening…

He reared back and off her in agony and she reached down for her knife, flipped it out and that was that; the man fell back, death rattle sounding and she pulled her legs out from under him, kicking one of his away.

Bass let the body of the other man drop, away from her… 

And she was suddenly on her feet, facing him, looking absolutely and totally fucking beautiful; her breasts bare, her eyes on his, the look in them searing him to his bones, and her lips wide in a smile he would remember forever, she stepped closer… ‘Monroe, you came…’ 

‘Bass? Thank god…how the…flying fuck did you find us?’ his voice hoarse, incredulous, Miles finished his last opponent with a casual thrust up into the heart, his breath coming in harsh gasps, chest heaving… Then he walked over, pulling Charlie into a hug, his eyes checking her over, rage blazing as he saw the state of her clothes…’hey, kid, you ok?’

She nodded, eyes still slightly dazed, but the beginnings of a smile curving her lips as she looked up at him…’yeah’ then she turned back to Bass… ‘Monroe got there in time…’

Miles looked at Bass again and nodded… ‘Yeah, he did…’

Bass saw the thanks in his brother’s eyes, but he had to say something, they’d been taken by surprise, been careless… ‘Miles, you need to pull it together, brother, this?’ he looked round the barn, there were scattered bodies everywhere… ‘This shouldn’t have happened…’

Miles took a deep breath and looked away, then he nodded…’yeah… I know…’

Behind them, Bass could see Staypuft slowly pushing himself up, glasses catching the light and his mouth dropping open.

Then the barn, everything, everyone just… faded away; and the last thing he saw were her eyes, shadowy, bottomless blue, holding onto his... 

………………………………….

Bass nearly fell off the bench seat as he woke, the reality of the dream still ringing in his head and her eyes still holding him… 

His boots felt heavy, and in the moonlight he could see that they were thick with mud, the bottoms of his jeans were as well – and he smelled of blood and death… There was blood on his swords too, the blades looking pock marked and dull with it… He stared at them, then wiped them clean on one of the towels he’d used at the river. Then he pulled out his flask – taking a long swallow, the whiskey a welcome and fierce burn at the back of his throat.

Ok, so it hadn’t exactly been a dream; it had been physical, like it had been with Charlie. Somehow, something had taken him to where he could help her, help them, because he could say with absolute certainty that they had needed his help. 

Miles had been badly outnumbered – even for him, and as for Charlie, she’d been doing her best but the odds hadn’t been in her favour, and by the time Miles would have been able to get to her, barring some sort of miracle, Charlie would have been raped or worse... 

Rachel hadn’t been any help that he could see, sitting there catatonic by the looks while everyone else was fighting, and even if Staypuft had been trying, he’d been out for the count…

So, if yours truly hadn’t turned up like he did, they would all have been in a pretty bad fucking situation, especially Charlie… 

Bass looked around, the night here was peaceful, quiet, calm… so maybe it was this place? Nothing like these – dreams - had happened until he arrived here… Well, whoever or whatever it was, it - or they, seemed to be on his side, or on Charlie’s side or both – and he was damn grateful. 

He didn't know if he should say anything or do anything, but he thought his thanks anyway… 

He stood up, stretched, gathered his gear and took everything inside the cabin. Then he locked the door and took his clothes off – rinsing the blood off as much as he could and hanging them over the kitchen chairs to dry…

Then he pulled the white satin sheets back into some sort of order, put his swords under his pillow (just in case) and got in to bed, the fabric cool and smooth on his skin... 

Just like the night before, the moonlight came softly in through the blinds, making the room into a gently stark, striped landscape… And as he relaxed back against the soft mattress, feeling it mould to his body, so luxuriously different from sleeping on the ground, or on wooden floors, or concrete, he wondered if she would come to him again… Then he wondered what they were doing, back there, wherever there was and he hoped Miles would realize that he had to pull himself out of whatever hole he was in and do what he needed to do to keep them all safe, or at least give them a fighting chance, because Charlie had been right. Miles had looked tired, his eyes bloodshot, and it had taken him longer to work through the four guys he left him than Bass had expected… although even at his worst Miles was good at killing too…

Then his mind drifted back to Charlie - the relief, the hope in her eyes when she lifted her eyes and saw him there, that smile…

He was glad that somehow, besides killing for her, he’d been able to take some of the despair and desperation from her eyes…  
………………………………………

Her sudden weight on the bed woke him…because between one breath and the next she was there, lying next to him, her body warm and slim, her head propped up on one hand, moon dark eyes focused on his and a smile curving her full lips… Her dark golden hair hung in long, greasy waves over her shoulders, and a few strands lay scattered over her small pink tipped breasts, sliding down as she breathed and he could feel one of her cool (not cold this time) feet winding between his calves, her core hot and wet against his hip … and she leaned towards him, her eyes holding his until the moment her lips touched his; then she said thank you against his mouth, her tongue dipping in to touch his as she said the words…

This time it was tender between them, a slow, burning climb to the stars… She lay beneath him, looking up at him, her eyes going hazy and soft as he fucked her, her lips kiss swollen and her tongue flicking out over them as his cock slid in and out of her tight hot, wet centre. Her legs spread wide as she took him in, her hands sliding over his chest, his shoulders, her fingers teasing his nipples, tweaking the little pebbles…then laughing as he gasped and plunged in deeper, the satin sheets sliding over them…

She swept one of her knees up over his shoulder to give him even deeper access, the muscles of her leg tensing and releasing against his cheek as she pulled him in then let him out in waves of slow, sweet, friction… 

He dropped his head next to hers; nuzzling her neck and the soft, sensitive skin there, smooth over the bones of her shoulder and collar bone, pressing kisses and soft bites there until she gasped too… 

Then everything went faster, harder, more urgent; their breath mingling as he plunged in deep, pushing her down into the softness of the bed, her head back against the pillows, her nails tracing frantic lines across his shoulders and back, her moans louder as he drove her faster, harder, one of her hands snaking between them to play with her clit, the back of her fingers pressed between them at each thrust…

And then, she stiffened…her breath catching, her pussy milking him as he came too in lightening flashes and hot, bright spurts that had him yelling her name… 

Then afterwards, she held him, his head resting on her breasts, his breath shivering her nipple and making it pebble again as he watched, his lips curving in a smile that found an echo on her face… 

He ran his hands over the lovely contours of her body; the cushioned breasts, the smooth belly, flank… his fingers finding and caressing the many scars from her journeys and his eyes catching hers in a kind of shared awareness, because they all had scars.... Then lower again; smoothing the skin over her belly, brushing over the soft curls between her legs, his fingers slipping between, making her gasp again, then sliding up again, then down over the smooth, swooping planes and curves of thigh and ass… 

 

‘Monroe?’

He looked back at her face, ‘yeah?’

She looked at him, her eyes very serious, the moonlight shading the contours of her face so that her eyes gleamed out at him from a stunning, black and white portrait of her… ‘I don’t know how… this… is happening, or how long it’ll go on for or even if we’ll remember any of it, later…’ she leaned closer, her lips very close to his…’but I want you to know that…that I…’ she paused.

He didn’t say anything, didn’t know what to say, so he just waited…

She let out a long breath, her lips held almost as though she was whistling; he loved the way she did that…’I wanted to say that I’m glad it did, happen I mean…’ 

Then she kissed him, a soft, gentle kiss that brought a lump to his throat…

She leaned back again, ‘and not just because you saved my life… again…’ her lips curved in that wicked grin of hers…’and by the way, thank you for that’ she reached up and dropped another quick, but intense kiss on his lips, then fell back… ‘Or because you made me feel alive again…’ the smile became softer… ‘Thank you for that too…’ 

She cleared her throat…’It was what you said to Miles back there... ‘ Her face was serious again….’He said that he’s going to stop drinking as much, that it was his fault that those guys got the drop on us.’ She put a hand up to his face, fingers playing with his scruff…

Bass made a noncommittal noise – because, no argument there, Miles should have been more careful, he was the fucking ex General and former Marine after all, she was just one beautiful, incredibly brave and strong woman - and one that he could feel himself falling totally and irreversibly in love with… Fuck.

Then she laughed, her legs sliding around his…’You should have seen his face – and Aaron’s, when you just disappeared?’ she stretched her arm out above her head…’It was priceless’ she turned laughing eyes up to him. ‘I think you made Miles re think his attitude to religion…’

Bass laughed too, the laugh loosening things inside him he didn’t know had got so tight…

Then she pulled him towards her into a long, sweet, swooning kiss, her body pressed against his feeling like heaven itself, her hot centre welcoming him back in…

Then she was gone; his lips left searching for hers, his cock left cold and aching without her; the bed empty except for him between one heartbeat and the next, the satin still falling in gentle folds into the space where she’d been…

Shit… He fell back on the pillow, staring into the moonlit dark… 

He still didn’t know where she was or where Miles was taking them… He’d stay a bit longer, see if it happened again, then he could find out more, then he lay there thinking, mostly of her, for a long, long time…

And eventually he slept…

Then, from the corner of the room beside the door, a piece of shadow moved, gently wafting over towards the side of the bed, and something that looked like a slim finger reached out to stroke down the side of his face…

…………………………………………

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey there - and thanks so much for reading, and please let me know what you think if you have a moment :) next chapter is on the go as we speak... cheers, Magpie


	4. How the cards fall...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author’s note:   
> Hi there and thanks so much for having a look at this – and for all the kind comments. I hope you enjoy this next chapter … ☺ The story is based on prompts from the Orgy Armada’s Revolution, The Second Coming…
> 
> I don’t own any part of Revolution and am writing this purely for love of the show and its characters.

Charlie opened her eyes to a sky full of stars, shining bright through the branches swaying overhead. Her arms were still shaped around that wonderfully hard muscled body, her legs open as though he was still between them, her lips still parted from his… Shit… what a moment for whatever it was to transport her back. Her head fell back against the hard pillow of her leather jacket… Damn, damn, damn and now she couldn’t stop thinking about him, the hard, easy strength, those melting blue eyes… the way he’d known just how to move, where to touch, the way he’d swung her beneath him and just filled her up... 

Her tongue flickered out; her lips and nipples felt swollen, sensitive to the slightest touch… and as for her clit, well, lets just say that her little playmate was still dancing… Her hand crept downwards, stealthy, but it felt weird doing…that… with Miles on watch at the edge of their camp, and her mom and Aaron on the other side of the fire.

She pulled her hand back up…damn again… then squirmed a little and sighed, quietly… 

‘Charlie? What the hell just happened?’ Aaron’s voice was a harsh whisper in the quiet night… 

She jumped and looked around. Aaron was sitting bolt upright, staring at her, his glasses catching the starlight, he looked like he’d seen a ghost…

‘Where did you go? How did you get back? What the fuck is going on?’ his voice got louder… then he stopped and took a deep breath, whispering again…’Charlie, are you ok?’

‘I’m fine, Aaron, and I don’t know…’ she whispered back…

‘Hey, keep it down over there, you guys…’ Miles swung round towards them from his seat on a log at the edge of camp; his eyes unreadable in the dark …

Aaron kept going, his voice lower this time…’were you with him? with Monroe? I mean, no way is it coincidence that he turns up in time to help us then disappears, and then you do the same…’ he shuffled closer – and she understood, she didn’t like to guess what her mom would do if she had to process that little bit of information in her current state, or if Miles had seen her disappear too, like Monroe did last night. She didn’t think so – he seemed way too calm…

Wow… so it was real; amazingly, incredibly real… Her thighs and butt ached as though she really had been riding him and there was a little sore spot, a friction burn at the base of her spine as though Monroe really had pounded into her on those wonderfully slippery sheets… so maybe he had? 

He was really there last night in the barn too; that hadn’t been a dream either, because Miles and Aaron had seen him, not to mention that he’d killed all those creeps... He’d somehow come to her, when she, they, needed him, and he’d saved her again, like he did in the Tower. 

She took a deep breath in and let it out slowly… Ok, maybe she was getting a bit too rose coloured after a couple of really good fucks, some sympathy and a white knight rescue… but she really didn’t care how it had happened, just that it had… And, lets face it, all sorts of strange things had been happening lately, it was just one more… 

But she wasn’t stupid; he was Sebastian Monroe, the man who’d run the militia, who’d been their enemy, and he was far from being a white knight like in the books… But then none of them were exactly innocent were they? Her mom, her dad, Miles, Aaron, they all had secrets, had all done things… She’d killed people herself; lots of people… and Monroe had lost everything, just like the rest of them. 

Besides, she was getting to like him; he was one hell of a fighter – and one hell of a… 

‘Charlie?’ 

She came back to this reality…’Oh, sorry, I was thinking…’ 

He came a bit closer, ‘are you ok?’ he swallowed, and he had that look he got whenever he was embarrassed about something... ‘I mean, he didn’t hurt you, or anything… did he?’

Charlie just looked at him…’No, he didn’t hurt me…’ she searched for the eyes behind the glasses, wanting him to see she was telling him the truth… ‘He saved our lives, Aaron, why would he want to hurt me after that?’ Then she couldn’t help but say something to reassure him, because even behind the big glasses she could see how worried he was, about her… ‘He was…nice…’

Aaron chewed his lip…’ok, so when he’s not slicing people up, or trying to take over the world, he’s… nice?’

Charlie lifted an eyebrow and sat up, relieved to find that she still had her clothes on. So how did it work that she was naked when she saw him in that bed and by the river, but Monroe still had his clothes on when he came to the barn? She shrugged… ‘Yeah…’ she considered Monroe… ‘He was sweet…’

Aaron’s face went blank…’Sweet…’ then he brightened up again and leaned forward…‘ok… so what happened when you went to meet Mr nice and sweet? What did it feel like when you started to, you know, disappear? Did you have any say in when you went, or where you went? What happened when you were between here and… wherever? I mean, you sort of appeared from nowhere, as if you were transported like in that story I told you about when you were a kid - Star Trek?’ He took a breath… ‘Did it hurt? Did you feel like you were being stretched out? Or like you were being twisted around?’ Aaron’s mind was obviously moving in mysterious ways and Charlie waited until he paused for breath before she even tried to get a word in…

‘Aaron?’

He reached out and poked her arm, then her shoulder… 

‘Ow?’

He sat back again…‘you feel normally solid, and there’s no static, and I can’t see an aura so it doesn’t look as though there’s any residual energy from the transition…’ he chewed his lip again…’Do you feel hot?’

’Pardon me?’ 

He ignored her and reached for his bag, pulling out a grubby notebook and a short pencil, leaning into the dim light from the coals and writing furiously…

Charlie stared at him. There was no point talking to him now, he was as bad as her mom when he got an idea going, and she was sure that he’d have some more questions soon enough…

She moved her gaze over to where her mom was still lying in her bedroll, asleep? It was hard to tell if her mom noticed anything at all, she just stared off into space most of the time, walking where they led her, sitting where they sat... Charlie even had to take her into the woods every couple of hours to make sure she didn’t mess herself; and she didn’t eat, or drink unless they made her…

Miles hadn’t mentioned Monroe, not since the barn, but she knew he’d be wondering why she hadn’t been that surprised at seeing Monroe appear, or why she hadn’t seemed shocked either when he did the disappearing act in front of them…

Whatever he thought about it, Miles had been on red alert since Monroe had turned up and saved her - and the rest of them from the raiders, and just after Monroe…left… he’d told them to grab their crap, leave the bodies where they lay and then he’d walked them hard for an hour, even with her mom doing the zombie thing again, just going wherever he led her… 

Charlie wasn’t sure of the details yet, but she knew, and so had Nora – that Miles and her mom had had – and were probably still having an affair… Miles was still careful in front of her though, but did he think she hadn’t noticed the looks he gave her mom? That even with her mom off in her own little world of guilt and crazy, he was the one she looked for, followed around, reached for when she wasn’t just staring off into space… not her daughter, and even when she did seem to notice Charlie she’d get a sort of confused look in her eyes and look past her, looking for someone else, looking for Danny…

And as for Danny, she’d asked him to stay inside when the Choppers came; she’d tried to save him, but no, he had to decide to be a hero… She sighed again, keeping it quiet this time. The world had gone to hell anyway so what did it matter if she’d slept with one of its monsters – and she’d do it again like a shot, dream or no dream, apart from everything else, he seemed saner than anyone she knew at the moment… 

Anyway, re-energised Miles had used a leafy branch to cover their tracks, then trekked them through a couple of streams, before doubling back and doing it again, then having them walk in single file with Aaron at the back because he had the biggest feet, just in case the raiders had any friends nearby who might come after them looking for blood… 

She wriggled back down in her bedroll, hand heading southwards again… Shit, even with all the thoughts of the general doom and gloom that was her life at the moment she was still pretty damn horny, and it wasn’t getting any better... She groaned quietly, briefly considering a trip out of earshot into the trees to have a pee and get herself off, but the chances of getting any decent alone time with Aaron thinking she was something out of one of his more out there stories and Miles back wearing his general’s hat were pretty freaking slim… 

She sighed, it would soon be time to start off on another weary, awful, dragging day of steering her increasingly out of it mom towards the only help for her anyone could think of; Charlie’s grandpa, Gene. She really didn’t want to think about what would happen if they got to Willoughby and found Grandpa Gene dead, or gone, but given their luck lately it was a distinct possibility that they were walking all this way for nothing…

A cold breeze wafted over her at the thought, and that did it; she was officially no longer horny, but she did feel a curious sense of loss. Monroe had been sweet, and tender, as well as sexy as hell… He’d made her feel wanted and beautiful, and she was so damned tired of feeling sad, dirty, lonely… So, awfully, horribly tired of all this…

She looked out at the world, trying to put off the inevitable... A watery dawn sun was starting to peek above a line of dark clouds gathering at the horizon and it felt like rain coming. She sighed again…they’d need to get going and find some real shelter before that. So she took a deep breath, let it out through her teeth and wriggled her way out of the smelly and scratch bed roll, mourning the loss of the soft, slippery white sheets and with a last, regretful thought of the man who’d been waiting in them, she got up; time to get real, Charlie…

Her pants done up, she shuffled her jacket on, fixed her knives to her chain belt, buckled her sword belt then walked over to get the fire going again for coffee. They’d need some more of that, of everything come to think of it, and soon… She’d traded a half dozen rabbits for some Mexican coffee beans and what passed as whiskey in the last town they passed by but there wasn’t much of either left now. She’d try to do some hunting today – make some jerky, maybe get some pelts ready to trade in the next town.

As she got their mugs ready her mom started to stir and the dreams – or whatever they’d been - seemed suddenly a long, long way away... 

………………………………………

As he lay in the big bed, putting off getting up for as long as he could, Bass couldn’t stop thinking about Charlie Matheson… The feel of her, there in his arms, in his bed; her warm skin, soft and smooth over taut muscles, those delicious breasts with their sweet tasting nipples, her tight pussy milking him dry… His hand snaked down – again – to a cock hard as a rock and aching to sink itself back into her, his mind bringing up other things too, things that he wanted to do to her, with her…

She was all he’d been able to think about, all he’d wanted to think about since he woke up, alone and heading back out on the lonely road towards his broken city was something he wasn’t ready to contemplate, not yet anyway… 

He made up his mind and decided to stay another night, maybe a couple… just to see if maybe it would happen again? If it didn’t, one or two more night’s sleep in a proper bed would do him good anyway, even if nothing happened in it except sleep… 

Then he had another thought… what if this was some weird kind of redemption thing, to help Charlie out by killing those guys and giving Miles a kick up the proverbial? Maybe it had been a way of helping him make up for the things he’d done in the past? He somehow didn’t mind the idea of that at all…

His stomach rumbled, loud and long, reminding him that he hadn’t eaten since yesterday afternoon and that man didn’t live on sex alone, although damn it, he’d be willing to give it a go if the sex was with Charlie Matheson. He chuckled then stretched in the white satin nest, his muscles feeling rested, rejuvenated… He hadn’t felt this good in a very, very long time…

Rolling out of bed, he padded over to the window to have a look around. The early morning sun made everything look new and fresh... The lawn outside had become a shrubby, grassy wilderness over the years with little white and yellow flowers nodding on their stalks falling into patterns like green hair, catching the light. And in the saplings that grew close as well as on the bigger trees behind them, the bright greens, pinks and vermilion of new growth splashed vivid at the ends of branches waving in a slight, cool breeze. 

The sky was a duck egg, bottomless blue and way up high he could see the slowly wheeling shapes of a couple of raptors – eagles maybe? And off in the blue and purple distance, the Mountain View Motel showed him how it got its name, a range of peaks were arranged like a scenic picture postcard, the highest permanently white capped and serene, the valleys in shades of dark green, purple and sun bright gold and flashes of silver marked the places of river and lake. 

The view was incredibly beautiful… and apart from the natural noises, things were quiet and peaceful…

Bass reached for his pants and shirt, dressing quickly and shoving his feet into his boots… There was enough water for a couple of days, and there was the river nearby anyway… He had jerky and dried fruit in his pack, as well as some of the hard biscuits he’d found in the provision packs he’d taken from the Militia guys… so, no real need to hunt yet if he didn’t want to and when he did, it looked like there was game ready for the taking round here anyway.

Outside, the air was crisp and clean and he smiled as he looked around; this was a beautiful place. He was surprised that there weren’t people living here, but the road didn’t look as though it had been used much and there were no signs of even transient occupation. 

He shrugged, then set himself up on the old, solid wooden picnic bench and table just outside the front door and pulled out some of his jerky. Chewing, he pulled out the magazine from the Militia man’s battered canvas pack, chuckling when he realized that it was a copy that he and Miles had laughed over a couple of months before the blackout... 

They’d been on weekend leave and recovering from a night out; Miles had gone out to get them some coffee and come back with two iced espressos and the magazine… He’d said the girl on the front page reminded him of someone. Bass remembered thinking at the time that she looked a bit like Rachel although he was careful not to say her name. Miles had thought his little obsession was a secret; Bass huffed, as if his brother could keep something like that from him…

A feeling of deep regret grated in his bones. They had been brothers since they were kids - better than brothers really, Ben had had so little in common with Miles that it was as though the two of them were from different families. But whatever had happened between them to make Miles do what he did, make him turn his back on his oldest friend, it was something that shouldn’t have happened, and to his way of thinking it had all started back when Rachel turned up, when she married Ben instead of Miles, when it was obvious to anyone who looked that she loved Miles, not Ben… 

Some seed had been planted then maybe, something that grew twisted when she turned up in Philadelphia, when everything started to go wrong… 

Then, and he had to admit his own fault there, he’d kept the fact that Rachel was alive a secret too… That had been a fucking stupid idea; letting Miles think she was dead, even if he’d thought it was for the best… Miles would never have gone away if he’d known she was alive…

Bass put the mag down to have a drink and noticed the pack of cards still in the backpack. He hadn’t looked at them closely before; just thought they were an ordinary deck - although he’d kept them of course, pre-blackout playing cards were expensive items now and worth a bit in trade… But these didn’t look like regular playing cards; the box was bigger for one thing. He reached in and pulled it out…

They were Tarot cards. Interesting… 

He’d heard about the Tarot of course, sort of, although it was a bit new agey for a US Marine to express too much of an interest and since the blackout most people who were into that sort of stuff had headed to Cali. He chuckled; according to the stories, every second person in Cali was a practicing witch or Wiccan, or whatever they called themselves now… 

He opened the box. The backs of the cards were patterned with an ornate grid, just like a normal pack… and most of the cards were pretty similar to regular playing cards, except that there were extra picture cards as well as the usual kings and queens; cards with names like ‘The Magician,’ ‘Temperance’ and ‘the Star. It all sounded very Cali...’ He grinned again; Miles would have used the extras as kindling, or coasters, then played poker with the rest… 

Bass shuffled the pack and slid one off the top, just out of curiosity....

He picked it up…’The Lovers’ was printed at the bottom of his card in an antique script, and it had a naked man and woman standing just above the text, with what he guessed was some sort of magical being smiling above them - bringing them together? He grinned, maybe his little adventure of the night before was rubbing off on the cards…

He shuffled them again; then pulled out another card from way down the pack and turned it over. He sat for moment; just looking at it... It was the same card, The Lovers…

He choked off a laugh; that was a bit…unexpected, but it wasn’t out of the realms of possibility... He mixed the cards up on the table, folding and shuffling them again several times, cut the pack into three, stacked them again, then repeated the whole thing twice more just to be sure…. 

He slid the top card off and placed it on the table, face down... There was no possible, freaking way that the card could be the same this time, the odds were astronomical…

He turned it over… 

‘You have got to be kidding me…’ His voice was startlingly loud, the words ringing out like intruders…and when the sound died away, the silence seemed to hang heavy in the air, the birds and insects gone quiet - even the sound of the wind in the pines stopped for a moment…

The card lay there, the two naked little people smiling up at him, looking like they were waving… and for a moment there he could have sworn that the Angel, or whatever it was, winked at him… 

Bass put the rest of the pack down and examined the card… It wasn’t weighted; the corners were a little worn but no more than any of the other cards. There were no suspicious lumps, or lines, so unless the whole card was magnetised, which it wasn’t because his compass didn’t react; it was just like any of the other cards… He put it down, there had to be some trick, he just hadn’t found it yet…

He picked the rest of the pack up and two more cards slid out onto the table, just two, from different parts of the deck, both of them landing face up on the table. Bass stared at them…

One was of a man on horseback, galloping with a sword held ready to strike in his hand. At the bottom was written ‘The knight of swords.’ The other card showed a young man, walking, holding a large coin; it was the ‘Page of Pentacles.’

Ok… the sword was a no brainer, and pentacles obviously meant money or coins…

He put the cards down and sat back in his chair, so it was a bit strange, especially after last night, but, hey stranger things had happened and unless the cards were going to show him some buried treasure or something useful like that, he couldn’t really see what use they were…

He had a drink, the water tasted bland and a bit flat and he wished the cards had been some coffee beans; some coffee would be really good about now… 

Then he heard something in the distance, horses; three of them by the sound, shod, and ridden not driven; there was no sound of wheels or the rattle of a wagon. Whoever was coming was still out of sight round a bend in the road, but they were coming up the ragged bitumen road towards the hotel at a slow but steady walk; the sound clear in the mountain air. He couldn’t tell yet if there was anyone walking with them…

Bass looked down at the cards… Ok, this was getting weird… 

He pulled himself together, grabbed his crap – and the cards - and headed inside… There was no point advertising he was here, and if the cards were right it could be bounty hunters maybe? Or a Militia kill-squad, although he’d have heard their kit… or maybe even some of the new guys, the so-called Patriots; the rumours had them spreading out across the map. Of course it could just be travelling traders or mercenaries too, there were plenty of both on the roads these days… 

Still, caution was not a bad thing these days, especially if your name was Sebastian Monroe – and you had the tattoo to prove it.

………………………………………

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AN: hope you’re enjoying this ☺ next chapter coming soon… cheers and thanks for reading, Magpie


	5. The road less travelled

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author’s note:   
> Hi there and thanks so much for having a look at this, and for some lovely and encouraging comments, I hope you enjoy this next part… ☺ This story is based on prompts from the Orgy Armada’s Revolution, The Second Coming but it wanted to go further…
> 
> I don’t own any part of Revolution and am writing this purely for love of the show and its characters.

Bass watched from behind the corner of the building as the riders approached the Motel, close enough to see but far enough away that he wouldn’t spook the horses…

They were Bounty hunters by the looks. And in rough, weather worn leathers, patched jeans and Militia issue boots they looked like they’d been on the road for quite a while. They wore sabres at their hips and had rifles in their saddle holsters; one had a machete as well and Bass thought he could count on at least three pistols between them by the bulges… The horses, one a big, rangy black, the other liver chestnut, with a heavy laden pack mule tethered behind, were sweating in the morning sun and with the climb, their legs moving with the steady, ground covering plod of seasoned travellers. 

He watched as the riders pulled up under the shade of one of the big trees that bordered the drive in front of the old Motel reception; the two men swinging down out of their saddles with the easy economy of long practice. They left the horses and mule hobbled and grazing on the long grass that grew at the edges of the road, then headed off on a pretty basic circuit of the buildings…

He followed, keeping out of sight but they were noisy, careless – and he found himself wondering how they’d survived this long - crashing through the tall growth around the buildings like amateurs. The older one was using his machete to slash a path through the tall shrubs that surrounded the place, swearing every now and then as a branch swept back in his face…The other guy kept very close behind, hunched over, muttering under his breath all the way and looking around as though he expected something to leap out at him any second.

Bass considered it, just to see how high the guy could jump, but he held back just in case either of them said anything useful – like who they happened to be hunting and if they were expecting any friends - but apart from the swearing and muttering he didn’t hear anything useful, yet anyway…

When they’d finished thrashing around outside; machete guy occasionally peering in through a window, but neither of them trying to get into any of the buildings…they headed back to the horses, and pretty soon he was back behind his wall, wondering how the two of them actually ever caught any bounties.

Second guy went over to the pack mule, pulled out a couple of water bottles and a bottle of whisky and both of them sat down on one of the old logs that framed the entrance to the Motel. First guy pulled out a pouch of tobacco from an inside pocket of his jacket, rolled a smoke and lit up, and soon wafts of aromatic smoke rose into the air, drifting towards the wall… 

Bass was impressed, tobacco was pretty rare – and very expensive these days, and it was the good stuff too, by the smell of it… He liked the look of the horses as well; they’d make the going a lot easier than walking, although it was harder to hide with one, let alone three… He debated, letting the men go might put others off the trail if they reported no sign of anything, but on the other hand, Bass needed all the resources he could get, it was still a long way to what was left of Philadelphia, if that was where he was going…

Smoking guy coughed, then took another toke; ‘I told those Patriot guys it wouldn’t be worth the fucking climb to come all the way up here’ he said…’but oh no, they wouldn’t listen to me…’ he waved a hand at the quiet hotel ‘I mean, look at it… the place is deserted, blind Freddy could see that...’

Bass grinned; hooray for blind Freddy…

Non-smoker took a swig from his canteen, ‘Yeah, and why would Monroe come up here anyway? Chances are he’s already high tailed it off to somewhere like Alaska where no one’s heard of him, somewhere far away from here anyway…’

Smoking guy nodded…’That’s what I said’ he took another drag…’I mean, there’s nothing left in Philly, and what’s left of the Militia are just wandering around like the walking dead, or joining any clan that’ll have ‘em’

Non-smoker shrugged…’So where to next then?’ he circled his shoulders and stretched…’Patriots have got plenty of other names on those pretty posters of theirs, some of them worth almost as much as Monroe’ he pulled out a sheaf of papers from inside his jacket, ‘They’ve got 60 diamonds on Miles Matheson, alive’ he chuckled, looking at the one on top…’although I heard he hooked up with Georgia so he could be ashes and gone by now…’ 

‘I get the feeling these guys wouldn’t bother offering 60 diamonds for ashes…’ little wisps of smoke streamed out of smoking guy’s nose as he spoke…’so they must know something we don’t…’

Non-smoker shuffled the pile of papers…’what about Rachel Matheson, there’s 80 on her…’ he grinned… ‘They must want her pretty bad; is she his wife or sister by the way?’

Smoker spat a gob onto the road, the spitball hitting the dust like a little meteorite, impact crater and all… ‘Don’t know...Patriot guy said he thinks she’ll be heading to Texas to join her old man and that Matheson would probably be with her. Her pop’s a doctor in a town called Willoughby, been working with the Patriots for years apparently…’ he grinned ‘and yeah, she’s the important one, they want her real bad, and they’ll be waiting there for her if someone don’t catch her first’ he chuckled…’that’s 140 diamonds for the two of them, and it’d be a shame to let all those lovely diamonds go to someone else wouldn’t it?’ 

Non-smoker nodded and licked his lips… ‘Damn right…’

Smoker leaned over and tapped the bounty sheet…’So I say we go catch ‘em now, it’ll be too late once they get anywhere near Willoughby - if the Patriots don’t catch them then, the Rangers will, and Texas’ll just hang em, especially after Matheson tried to kill their President…’

‘So how do they know all this anyway?’ non smoker pulled a piece of jerky out of a pocket and chewed…’you talked to them…how’d they find out all this stuff?’

Bass held his breath, that’s what he wanted to know too.

‘They’ve had spies here for years, Tanner, since before the blackout… Sleepers, had em all over the place’ Smoker took a last toke and stubbed his smoke out on the log next to him, ‘Texas, the Monroe Republic and Georgia before they fell, the Plains Nation, Cali, even some in the Wastelands I heard, although they’ve probably been eaten by now, food’s been real short down there and folks don’t care where their protein comes from…’ He pulled out his own canteen and took a long pull then reached for the whisky…’They’re all coming out of the woodwork now that their boss has arrived…’ He spat again… ’President Davis, my ass… That guy Davis ain’t my President’ he shrugged…’still, diamonds are diamonds...’

Non-smoker pondered for a moment…’Monroe’s trail’s been cold for days; we only had a few vague rumours that he’d come this way. Maybe he’s headed for Texas too – maybe he’s gone to join up with Matheson and the woman?’

Smoker snorted…’Matheson tried to kill him in Philly, why the hell would Monroe want to hook up with him again…’

‘Maybe they’ve made up – I mean, they worked together for years, and those ex Militia guys, the ones we bumped into near that Tower place? They said they had Monroe prisoner but someone saw Matheson help him escape…’ Non-smoker pulled out another piece of jerky and started chewing…

‘Yeah, I heard that too…’ Smoker shrugged… ‘Ok, three’ll be even better than two, and besides, I like Texas, I’ve got some family down that way, we could call in there and get a decent feed…’ he looked around…’this place looks alright though, why don’t we stay the night here and head off in the morning’

Non-smoker shook his head…’No fucking way, this place gives me the creeps’ he looked around, his head hunched over a little, his voice hushed…’How come no one lives here, Bud? How come the people in town looked at us so funny when you said we were coming up here to look for Monroe?’

The other man smirked…’Are you telling me you believe in some silly ghost stories?’

Non-smoker shrugged, ‘I don’t know nothing about any ghosts; I don’t like the place, that’s all…’ he stood up…’Come on, there’s plenty of daylight left, we could be well on our way by dark’

Smoker stood up and coughed, a long wet sound…’Ok, ok, if you say so, they’re just stupid stories though…’

Non-smoker started walking, calling over his shoulder…’I don’t care… and you should stop smoking, Bud, it’s bad for you, my dad smoked and he got the cancer, he just faded away.’

Smoker huffed and gathered his things.

Bass got ready to move, cancer was the least of their worries… They’d been as good as dead as soon as they mentioned going after Miles and Rachel – because Charlie was there too... 

It sounded as though every fucking bounty hunter in the country could be heading towards Texas so he needed to get to her soon, and for real – he couldn’t wait around here hoping she’d come back…. She and Miles needed to know that Willoughby was a trap and that Charlie’s grandpa was a Patriot spy. 

He didn’t care so much what happened to Rachel, but Miles did, and if the Patriots wanted her it couldn’t mean anything good for anyone else, so, obviously he and Miles needed to keep her away from the Patriot bastards… He shrugged… finding out that her dad was a traitor might be enough to send Rachel totally over the edge of crazy, but that wasn’t his problem, Charlie was… 

Bass moved out, ghosting his way up behind smoker and slitting the guy’s throat like he was a watermelon… The man died without a sound, falling to the ground in a crumpled heap.

Non-smoker must have heard something because he turned in time to see what was coming at him, his eyes going wide in shock… He had just managed to get his sabre out when Bass got to him carrying enough momentum to shoulder the other man in the sword arm and knock him off balance before sliding around behind him to slice his knife up under the guy’s well padded chin, severing the artery and a few other things on the way.

He let the body fall; then wiped the blade on the guy’s ruined shirt.

The horses didn’t even look up…

………………………………………

After he’d persuaded the mule to help him drag the bodies into a nearby gully, Bass led it and the two horses out the back, unloaded and tethered them where there was plenty of grazing near his cabin and out of sight of the road. He didn’t think he had to worry too much about anyone sending out search parties for the two bounty hunters but it was better to be cautious.

Then he sat down again in front of his cabin, took the pack of Tarot cards out of their box and placed them on the table in front of him, poured himself some whisky and considered the options… 

Option one – he’d completely lost his mind and everything that had happened was all in his head. Possible, but something didn’t feel quite right about that, everything else was so... normal. And she had felt so real, so had Miles and the others.

Besides, things had only become weird since he’d found this place. 

Charlotte Matheson had moved into his dreams and into every moment of his waking life like she was meant to be there, which was something that a couple of days ago he would have said was as likely as him making old bones. He couldn’t deny that he wanted her now in every way it was possible to want someone, and if he ever got the chance to try and make her want him back, love him back? for real? he’d do fucking anything to take it…

He took a deep breath and a sip of his drink…

Option one – part two...

Whatever, or whoever it was had somehow taken him to where Charlie, Miles and the others needed him, because he was pretty damn sure that they’d all be dead by now if he hadn’t turned up… So… miracle? 

Or had that been all in his head too?

He stretched a leg out along the bench and leaned back....

Option two… If it was really happening, whatever was doing it seemed to be on his, on their side, and he wasn’t complaining about that. It felt like a long, long time since anyone had weighed in on his side of the equation…

Bass sipped his whisky and looked down at the pack of cards… He’d taken them from the militia deserters near the Tower but nothing weird had happened with them until he got here. So, had whatever it was used them to communicate with him? The lovers card coming up three times had been pretty funny… so maybe they had a sense of humour too…

The bounty hunters had talked about this place being haunted, that people told stories about it… 

He looked around; it looked just like any other run down Motel after the blackout - no spookier than anywhere else. In fact he’d seen plenty of other places he’d have said looked more haunted… and besides, he’d never heard of ghosts being able to move people around; that was crazy.

He drained his glass and poured another. 

But it didn’t matter anymore anyway…

Because now, thanks to the intel from the bounty hunters, he knew where Charlie, Miles and the rest of them were heading and he was pretty sure that he could find them – especially now that he had horses… 

So it was decision time. 

He could just forget about the dreams. Forget about everything that might, just might, have happened here. He could leave Charlie, Miles and the others to whatever fate awaited them and keep on going towards Philly to see what was left of his Republic. That’s if there was anything left of his city or if his own men didn’t try to kill him because they thought he’d sent the fucking nukes.

Or, he could head off towards Willoughby, find Charlie and Miles, warn them and maybe join them. Because they needed his help, even if they didn’t want it, even if Charlie didn’t want it - or him... He could feel the truth of that in every bone he had.

He frowned, his eyes a hard, icy blue; there was another reason to find Miles – and Rachel too, if she hadn’t gone too far down the path to crazy to see the truth. 

Randall Flynn had worked for the DoD; so had Ben, and Rachel... It was all tied up together, and there was no fucking reason living now why Rachel shouldn’t tell them everything she knew. 

There was something really off about these Patriot guys, he knew it, and if it was true that they’d been planning this since before the blackout, even planting sleeper spies for fuck’s sake… Then it made sense that they had had something to do with causing the blackout; maybe they had everything to do with it. 

In fact it sounded a lot like a conspiracy, and if that was true, then the Patriots were responsible for the whole fucking thing; for everything, the blackout, the nukes…

Everything… And if that was true, he wanted payback. 

He tossed his whisky back and set the glass down on the table, hard…

Ok, Willoughby it was.

One of the horses whickered and he swung round to check things out, gun ready, but after a couple of minutes and nothing happening, he relaxed, all three animals were grazing peacefully now…

Then he turned back around and nearly jumped out of his skin, his hand bringing his gun up ready in a reflex as automatic as breathing…

There was a woman sitting at the other side of the table. A slim, attractive woman in a loose, floating summer dress, long, slightly greying brown hair curling around her shoulders, bright green eyes in a sweet, strong face; she looked to be in her thirties or forties maybe? And he could see through her to the wall behind… 

He felt his mouth drop open as he made himself lower the (totally useless) gun…‘Who are you?’

She smiled at him… ’I live here’ then she shrugged, her dress moving in a breeze that wasn’t here at all… ‘I’ve been watching you…’ 

He just stared…’you live here? So your’re a…’ He stopped; he had no idea what the polite word was for ghost... ‘You know, a….’ he cleared his throat… ‘So was it you? The dreams?’

She nodded, the lime washed bricks behind her making strange patterns across her face…

Bass put the gun back in his belt and picked up his whiskey instead… ‘How? 

’I was here when the blackout happened…’ she looked away…’and I never left…’ She lifted her eyes to his again and he had the strangest feeling of vertigo, of falling into them... She swept a hand up along her body…’It wasn’t always like this though, I wasn’t always as strong, I’d even forgotten my name…I’ve only been able to do…this… and the other things since the night of the lightening, before that, I was just a shadow…’ she gazed out into the distance…’Something happened because of the lightening, something that changed things, changed me, helped me see further, be more…’ her eyes came back to his, the lines of her face rippling slightly…’and it’s still changing…’

Bass remembered that night very well… He’d been standing in a field and the lightening had rippled and cracked across the sky for what seemed like hours... 

He needed to know, ’so were they real? The dreams? Charlie?’

She nodded again, ‘in a manner of speaking; Jung called it the collective unconscious and I suppose that’s as good an explanation as any… I simply helped you find the people you needed and who needed you in a place where you could be together; then you – and they - did the rest…’

He sat back, ok, so that made perfect sense, maybe… ‘And the cards?’

She laughed, a far away sound…’I liked them. I needed to let you know that those men were coming but I wasn’t ready to meet you like this yet, not until you’d made your choice…’

Bass let out a long breath, then met those strange eyes again…’Thank you’ he had another drink…’but why help me? I’ve done so many things…why not help the bounty hunters and the Patriots?’

‘I like you, Sebastian, and I think you deserve another chance…’ her lips curved in a smile, ‘I like your Charlie too...’ then the smile vanished and the eyes grew stormy, tiny streaks of lightening flashing in their depths ‘I don’t like the ones who sent the bombs though… the Patriots. They’re bad people’ the eyes somehow came closer, holding his…’they’re growing in numbers and strength very quickly though, Bass; they’re deceiving people, using them, and worse… You have to find a way to stop them, you, Charlie, Miles and the others…’

He looked into those eyes and felt himself falling back against the wall behind him, sleep taking him like a wave…

Her voice reached him from a long way away…. ‘Don’t worry, Bass… I’ll keep watch till you get back’

…………………………………………..

He was somewhere in amongst some tall trees. The sun was shining through scattered clouds and the leaves and branches around him were dripping with the remnants of rain… 

There was a small, weathered looking farmhouse in a clearing up ahead, visible through the trees. Miles and Staypuft were leading Rachel between them up the couple of steps onto the veranda and inside, her steps dragging, reluctant… The two men looked tired; Miles moving as though he hadn’t slept in days, and even from where Bass was standing, his eyes looked bloodshot, the creases around his mouth deeper, harsher than Bass remembered. The other man just looked tired…

‘Hey…’ her voice came from behind him ‘you came back’

He swung around; she looked tired too, those blue eyes gleaming like jewels out of a mud streaked face, her hair dirty and hanging in damp, stringy waves around her shoulders. Her jacket was tied round her hips, bow strap between her breasts with sweat stains bleeding away from it over the front of her dirty tank top. Her knives hung on that chain belt of hers and the faded jeans were covered in stains and rips, and one of her boots had a hole in the toe… She was beautiful… 

‘Charlie…’ he was cautious, this was different and he didn’t know how different – there were no white satin sheets here… He drew his sword, just in case, searching the woods behind her for targets, possible hostiles…

‘Put it away, Monroe, I’ve done a sweep… we’re clear’ She came closer, looking up at him, her head tipped a little to one side, those full, gorgeous lips curving at the corners. 

He always forgot how small she was… ‘Are you ok?’ Shit… he didn’t know what to say, he felt… exposed, unsure… 

She was right in front of him now, one of her hands running up over his chest to his shoulder and up further to run through the scruff on his cheek, leaving a path of superheated flesh behind it… 

Those beautiful blue eyes narrowed as she looked up at him… ‘No, I’m not ok, Monroe, you left me right in the middle of a fuck and I woke up with Aaron staring at me like I was a new science project; he’s still going on about transporter beams and checking my aura every five minutes…’ she slapped him lightly on the cheek, then she grinned…’how about you?’

‘You wouldn’t believe me if I told you’

One of her eyebrows lifted ‘try me…’

He looked around, ‘is there somewhere round here we can talk?’

She pointed with her free hand ‘there’s a shed over there, I’m supposed to be hunting but I’ve already bagged a couple of rabbits’ she started walking, pulling her bow strap up over her head, slinging it over her arm with her bag instead ‘they won’t expect me back for a half hour or so at least’.

He followed…’so how’s Miles been?’

‘Sober… it’s kind of weird, I don’t think I’ve seen him take one drink since you gave him the lecture…’ she swung around, strands of hair clinging to the fabric over her breasts…’I think he thinks you’re dead or something, that you came to warn him…’ 

‘Did you tell him I’m not? Dead I mean…’

They reached the shed door and she yanked him inside, pulling his head down into a searing kiss that rocked his bones. 

She spoke against his lips, ‘I haven’t told him anything, it won’t hurt him to stop drinking for a while.’ She kissed him again…’besides, I want you to myself for a while longer’

He laughed, his hands busy at her breasts…the fabric of her tank and bra loose enough that he could slide his hands underneath, cupping the soft mounds with his hands, his thumbs circling the pebbling nipples.., feeling them spring to hard peaks… He reached down again, grasping the edges of the tank and pulling it up and over her head then unsnapped her bra.

She gasped as he bent down and caught a nipple between his lips, his teeth and tongue playing there…

Then he looked up again, his eyes used to the gloom now. The shed had obviously been used as a garage and nearby was the bulky shape of what looked like a sports car – covered in thick tarpaulins. It had a long, low bonnet and he backed Charlie up against it… her legs moving with his, her breasts bare and tantalizing in brief glimpses as her hair moved over them. Her butt hit the metal and she stopped, her hands reaching for his belt, undoing it then working on the pants…

He was busy with hers too…then they both realised that her boots were going to be a problem. He yanked her jeans down to her knees and swung her round so she faced down, folded over the front of the car… 

She laughed…’I always wondered what people saw these in these old things …’ she sucked in a breath as he bent down and pressed kisses down her spine towards her ass… Then he went lower, crouching behind her, his hands kneading the pliant, springy globes, parting them so that he could reach the soft, wet folds of her pussy and clit with his lips and tongue, breathing in her sweet, spicy, earthy scent, her juices covering his cheeks and chin…

She fell forward onto the car bonnet, her breath coming in harsh gasps as he worked her harder; her fingers scrambling for a handhold on the stiff fabric of the tarpaulin…’Monroe…please.’

He chuckled, the sound vibrating against her flesh…then he stood up again, his cock a thick hard column rising against his flat, muscle ridged belly, and reaching down he held the heavy, rounded head against her core, sliding it up and down the cleft between her legs, through the soft, wet flesh…

She quivered underneath him, waiting… and they both gasped as he slowly slid inside her, her core squeezing him in a delicious, warm grip…

Then he pulled out and did it again, and again, until they were moving in a rhythm that got faster and faster, his hands on her shoulders holding her still against the give of the material under her, giving him leverage to plunge harder, their breath sounding loud in the small, dark space… on and on, feeling her tension building under and around him too until with a halting groan he came, emptying himself deep, deep inside her, his arms stretched along hers, his chest bowed over her, sweat sliding between them, his hands over hers, their fingers twined together, feeling her walls pulsing around his cock as her own climax hit, her breath halting for a brief, frozen moment, then starting again in little gasps, gradually slowing…

They stayed where they were for a little while, catching their breath, Bass stroking along her body, tracing the curves… 

Charlie turned beneath him, sliding round and up so that she could look at his face… ‘So what happens next?’ she reached up and wiped a bead of sweat off his brow before it could drop into his eyes… ’Something’s changed, hasn’t it?’

He nodded…’I heard some bounty hunters talking today, Charlie…’ he stroked a strand of hair away from her face, dropping a kiss on her lips, ‘The Patriots have got bounties worth a fortune on Miles and your mom, especially your mom’ 

‘What do they want with my mom?’ her eyes were startled, anxious…

He hated that he had to spoil what they’d just had by telling her all this…’They want your mom because of what she knows, Charlie, because she worked for Randall Flynn before the blackout…’ he saw the pennies drop in her mind, God, he loved that she was so smart, he didn’t have to explain much, she just knew… There was one thing though, and that was hard, he took a deep breath and she saw, of course she did…

‘What is it?’

‘It’s your Grandpa, Charlie, he’s been working with them for years, they’ll be waiting for you in Willoughby, if bounty hunters don’t get to you first…’

Her eyes were wide…’Grandpa? They know about Willoughby?’

He nodded…’I’m so sorry, Charlie’

She looked away, he could see the thoughts, the plans going through her mind…then she turned back to him…’there’s nowhere else we can go, Mom’s really sick, Grandpa’s a doctor… and I don’t even know if we’ll make it anywhere else’ her eyes filled…’we have to go to Willoughby, surely Grandpa wouldn’t put mom into them, would he?’

Bass caught her face in one hand, gently… ‘I don’t know, Charlie, I’m just telling you what I heard’ he kissed her…’This?’ he kissed her again…’this has all been a sort of dream, Charlie, it feels real, now, and it has been real in a way, because someone…special… has been helping us, but it’s not and I can’t stay, not for long anyway’. 

Her eyes were huge… ’But you’re here now, I don’t understand…’

He took a deep breath...’Charlie, when I wake up I’ll still be in the mountains outside of Colorado,’ He put every ounce of conviction into his voice that he could… ’But I’m leaving there today, and I am coming here to you, for real, I promise, and we’ll work something out, ok? You and me and Miles, we’ll work it out’ 

She just looked at him…

He ploughed on, knowing how crazy this all sounded…even to him… ‘It’ll take me about a week’s ride I think, give or take, but I’ll find you, I promise I’ll find you, I just don’t know if I’ll be able to come to you… like this… once I’m on the road, but you have to believe that I am coming to help you…’ 

Her eyes were getting bigger… ‘that does help to explain how it was warm by the river, when it was rainy and cold here…’

‘Yeah…’ he managed a smile…’now, do you think you could convince Miles to hole up here for a few days? It’s as good a place as any, as long as no one saw you…’ his worry showed in his eyes…’you’ve got to keep out of sight, Charlie, all of you, every bounty hunter within range will be coming after you…’

She looked up at him with something in her eyes that made his heart skip a beat…

‘Do you believe me Charlie?’

She nodded... ‘Yes, I believe you…’ then she reached up and touched his face, tracing the lines of it with her fingers…’I’ll make him wait, somehow, mom could do with a rest anyway…’ she pulled his lips down to hers…’but you’ll be quick as you can?’

He kissed her, hard, hoping that it wasn’t going to be for the last time… ‘I promise…’

This time, as he faded, part of him stayed aware enough to watch, and he saw the name of the street, and a town…

He knew where she was...

……………………………………….

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi, you were probably wondering how I was going to explain all of this... I hope you liked how it turned out :) cheers, Magpie


	6. I will find you

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author’s note:   
> Hi there and thanks so much for having a look and for enjoying it so far - and for being patient, this took a bit longer than I'd planned… ☺ The story is based on prompt (*97) from the Orgy Armada’s Revolution, The Second Coming but it wanted to keep going… Oh, the title of this chapter is from a line by Daniel Day Lewis’ character Hawkeye in the movie The last of the Mohicans… it also got a bit long, for which I’m sorry, but I didn’t know where to split it up…
> 
> I don’t own any part of Revolution and am writing this purely for love of the show and its characters.

The Mountain View Motel, afternoon…

Bass opened his eyes…

‘Do you know where you need to go?’

His ghost lady sat across from him, her dress still fluttering in a breeze from another time…

He nodded ‘yeah…’ And he did, he knew where Charlie was, where they all were… The farm sat on the edge of a town called Walsenburg near Spanish Peaks heading down the map towards Texas – in Indian country, mining country... Stories from his school days floated across his mind; the Ludlow Massacre, Rockefeller, Kit Carson; the Santa Fe Trail…

It had taken them a while to get there from the Tower, but the country was wild and mountainous and slow going on foot, especially with Rachel the way she was… Shit, even he’d had a hard time travelling through it going the other way and he hadn’t a crazy woman slowing him down. Now he had the horses it’d be easier, but he’d still have to backtrack for miles. He needed to find the quickest road through the mountains…

‘I’ll need a map…’

‘There are some in Reception, Bass, behind the desk’ She leaned towards him, at least she seemed to, her lips curved in a sad smile… ‘I used to work in there… I think….’ A little crease appeared between her brows, ‘or maybe I just saw some maps there?’ her fingers tapped on the table, the tips vanishing into the wood a little way at each tap, ‘damn it… I can’t remember…’

Bass felt a sudden urge to say something, anything; she looked so sad, sitting there…’What’s your name?’

She paused, her image shimmering in and out of sight….’I think I was Rose… Rose, after the flower…’

He smiled, it was strange but he was getting use to talking with a ghost, it almost seemed…. ordinary… then his face sobered…’Thank you, Rose - for everything…’ 

She reached over the table and patted his hand ‘I’m glad I was here and able to help’ 

Bass felt a cool sensation, like being brushed with ice – and the hairs on the backs of his fingers lifted… He shivered…

Her lips curved, and her eyes were intense whirlpools, pulling him into their depths…. ’But I’m especially glad because it was the right thing to do, Bass. You and Charlie and the others… you’ll make a difference, I know that, I can see that, I can see you fighting back against the evil…’ the smile widened, she blinked and he suddenly found that he could look away. She pulled her hand back and seemed to get further away somehow…’besides, I’m a romantic, and you and your Charlie have got something …’

Bass laughed out loud…‘don’t want to argue with that...’ he leaned forwards, reaching a hand out… ’Why don’t you come with me? I don’t like to think of you here, all on your own…’

She shook her head…’Thank you for asking me…but I…can’t… I live here…’ Then she started to fade, the wall behind her becoming clearer, more distinct…’but keep the cards with you, Bass…’ there was the sound of a faint, lilting laugh, ‘and remember to take the sheets…’ 

Then she was gone.

………………………………………..

He found the maps, right where Rose had said they’d be, behind the desk in Motel reception…a selection of hiking, trail and touring guides that covered Colorado, Texas and New Mexico and would take him, them, all the way to Willoughby.... A quick look gave him a route to Charlie that he figured would take him less than four days riding - if nothing went wrong of course…

Then he packed his crap after taking a quick inventory of his newly acquired possessions. He had food enough to last at least two weeks if he hunted along the way, as well as some well fitting spare clothes – there was a pair of pants that were long enough for Miles too, he’d looked like he needed them…and he now had a couple of extra bedrolls and blankets. He packed a set of the satin sheets too, taking the ones off the bed and leaving the clean set for another traveller to find (if they were lucky), it felt right to do that somehow…

He also took some things from the kitchen – knives, forks, spoons, bowls etc and whatever toiletries he could find in the other cabins too – real soap was precious and shampoo was almost unheard of these days and he thought Charlie would like some little luxuries – she’d looked as though she hadn’t had many lately and he didn’t think that Rose would mind… He also packed a few of the towels – call it tradition…

Rose’s tinkling laugh came from behind him, and he felt a cool kiss on his cheek; he chuckled, taking that as approval…

He was ready to leave in just under an hour… Both horses were in good shape and happy to get going after a rest and some grazing, and the mule seemed to like him a bit better once he gave it a rub down. He checked the load and tack one more time, then mounted the black, securing the leading reins for the chestnut and the mule to the back of his saddle…

Then he took a last look at the Mountain View; it looked peaceful in the sun – anything but haunted…

Rose appeared at his stirrup, her curly hair like a bright halo round her face, her smile bright against the green of the grass he could see through her…’Check the top card in the tarot pack each morning, Bass…. ‘ ‘If it’s the queen of Cups, then everything’s ok as far as I can see…’ then she shrugged, her dress rippling with the movement…’if its anything else, then I’ll try to come to you or find some way to warn you, ok?’

Bass held the black with a firm hand as it snorted and stamped, the horse didn’t seem to be impressed with having a ghost around, although the others weren’t bothered… ‘No more dreams, Rose?’

’They take a lot of energy, Bass, and I want to keep in contact for as long as I can’ She smiled up at him…’but if I’m careful I think I’ll be able to keep up with you for a while anyway, at least till you get to Charlie – then, who knows?’ The green eyes danced and her face shone…’but come back sometime if you can won’t you? When it’s all over? There’ll be a fresh set of satin sheets waiting for you and Charlie in the honeymoon cabin…’

Bass chuckled, it was a nice thought, even though he didn’t hold out much hope of it happening… ‘I’ll look forward to it, Rose…’ He swung the black round; then turned to wave…’take care…’

She stayed in sight until he was almost round the first bend in the road…and then she just wasn’t there…

And he was on the road again, but this time he had a real purpose; first, to find the woman of his dreams, literally… and, once he and Miles got the band back together, get some payback against the fucking bastards who blew up the world…

Sebastian Monroe was back in the game, and this time, he knew exactly who the enemy was…

…………………………………………

The first night passed so slowly that Charlie wanted to scream… 

She’d tried to sleep but couldn’t so she’d taken her blanket and was on her way outside onto the front porch. The old house felt too closed in, the floor too hard in the bare little room she’d taken as hers, the walls closing in on her like a prison… She checked on her mom and Aaron but they were both still asleep, her mom on the dusty couch in what used to be the lounge room of the house, and Aaron on the floor near the door because they couldn’t leave her alone… Her mom was muttering things in her sleep, things about Ben, and Danny – the Nano, the bombs, but then she always did that… Occasionally though she yelled out things they all tried to ignore, mostly about Miles, but sometimes she talked about Monroe - and Charlie was beginning to suspect that the history surrounding her family was a hell of a lot more complicated than she had ever imagined…

She looked down at her mom. Rachel Matheson was quiet now, although her lips twitched, but then they always did that… She could understand her mom feeling responsible for everything falling apart again; maybe… after all she was the one who told Aaron to turn the power back on, but just to cave in like this? She didn’t like to judge but she really thought her mom would have been stronger…more resilient. 

Charlie had tried to understand why her mom had folded like she did… Aaron had told them what had happened on the way to the Tower – how her mom had broken her leg and used the nanotech that she’d taken out of Danny’s body to fix it, and how she’d told him that she didn’t care about anything or anyone except getting revenge on Monroe for Danny… 

Well if all anyone thought about was revenge, there’d be no one left… They’d tried doing what her mom said and because of her, things were worse now than they’d ever been…

The Monroe she knew had saved her life twice so far, once in the Tower and then again in the barn… and in the dreams she’d seen a man who was strong, yet tender as well as being sexy as hell, and he hadn’t caved in after the bombs fell, instead he’d been going to see what was left. Sure he was as shocked as the rest of them at what had happened, but he’d offered to come and help them against the ones who did it. He was what they needed right now, and he’d promised to come...

She didn’t think she was seeing too much in him…after all he was just a man, but this…incredible…thing had happened to them and there had to be a reason why, didn’t there? 

Anyway there was no sleep for her, and no more dreams, no visit from Monroe - and even though she tried to imagine him there, his hands on her, his eyes, his lips, her body knew very well that he wasn’t. 

So she took her blanket out, spread it on the worn wooden boards, and sat there looking at the sky, and when Miles came over to wake her for her turn on watch she met him with a profound sense of relief because at least she had something to do. She stood up to meet him, glad to feel her body lithe and strong despite the tiredness that dragged at her soul…

He looked at her hard, his own exhaustion showing in the deep lines around his eyes, down his cheeks… ‘You alright, kiddo?’

She nodded, ‘yeah…couldn’t sleep, that’s all…’

He pulled her into a rough sideways hug, smelling of old sweat and dust and leather with faint remnants of whisky still hanging around although he was still not drinking, mostly anyway, another thing to thank Monroe for…‘Did you check on your mom?’

‘Yeah’ Charlie hugged him back, glad of him there but wishing for someone else; someone with blue eyes and a hard muscled body… She hugged him harder; feeling a little guilty and wondering when she should tell him that Monroe was coming, or rather that she hoped like hell he was coming. The hug felt nice and she let herself relax against him. Miles was physically strong of course, like Monroe, but different, taller, his arms longer, he felt wiry, all taut bone and sinew where Monroe was coiled muscle… ’She’s sleeping…’

Miles nodded…’good…’ then he let her go, slowly…’a few days in one place to rest will help, I’m glad you said you wanted to hang here for a bit…’ He stepped back, his serious face on, then he looked her in the eyes, ‘Is there something you want to tell me, Charlie?’

She let out a breath through her teeth and looked away…’You’ve been talking to Aaron haven’t you…’ she sighed heavily, she could tell by his face that he had… ‘I don’t know, Miles… it sounds sort of crazy, and I’m not sure you’ll believe any of it…’ she looked up at him. In the pre dawn light his eyes were full of shadows, hooded…

‘Try me…’

………………………………

Bass kept going until the first stars appeared… then set up camp a little way off the road for the night. He was making good time…

He pulled one of the satin pillowcases out of his pack to lay over his bedroll, laughing at himself for doing it… but the cool, white fabric against his skin reminded him of his dreams and her - and while she didn’t come to him (and he didn’t go to her) that night, he didn’t dream of lightning or the bombs either…

In the morning, he took out the pack of tarot cards, but the Queen of cups was sitting on her throne, smiling serenely on top of the deck… so he guessed Rose didn’t have anything to say… 

He was ready to hit the road again shortly after dawn and the only thing that he would have appreciated being warned about was that the damn mule was going to turn and bite him on the ass while he was adjusting the load… Luckily his ass was one of the least sensitive parts of his anatomy and he didn’t think the mule tried that hard – still, he decided to name the animal Painful. Bass was almost sure that he heard some distant tinkling laughter as he mounted up, but he ignored it. It was sort of funny though and he rode off grinning…  
………………………………….

Charlie spent the early part of the morning hunting, catching a few rabbits and a young deer – and in the afternoon she found a spot at the kitchen table away from the flies and prepared some jerky with the salt and spices they’d been able to trade for at the last town they passed. While she worked the conversation that she’d had earlier with Miles ran round and round in her head until she was glad that she could take some of her feelings out on the strips of meat in front of her… and that he was leaving her alone. 

It didn’t help her mood that Aaron kept peeking round the door at her, almost saying something but turning away at the last second until she got jack of it and threw one of the strips at him…

Miles had just looked at her when she told him that Monroe was coming but there was so much happening behind his eyes that she couldn’t even begin to take a guess at half of it…

‘You really believe that Monroe’s gonna come all this way to help us?’

She nodded ‘you saw him in the barn too, didn’t you? You know I’m not just imagining all this…’

Miles ran his hand through his hair…’I don’t really know what I saw, Charlie…’

She sucked in a breath…’Well I do, I saw Monroe, and he told me he was coming. He promised he’d find us, Miles…’

He looked away….‘So that’s why you wanted to stay here?’

‘Yeah – as well as to give mom a rest’ she tried a little smile…’Miles, we’re all on the edge…we need to stop for a while’ she shrugged… ‘And this seemed as good a reason as any, better than some’

‘You know that if this…this crazy shit is true, and he’s…real…and Bass does somehow find us... then he’ll have to stay right out of sight of your mom?’ His eyes were still shadowed, but he seemed to be accepting what she was saying, or pretending to at least…

She nodded…’yeah, I know… he knows it too…’

Miles cleared his throat, looking uneasy…. ‘You seem to…like him, Charlie… ‘ He shifted, fists clenching and unclenching…. ‘I know him… Has he done anything… I mean… has he…?’

Charlie laughed, although it was a strange, short laugh…. ‘Nothing I didn’t want him to…’

He dragged in a breath…’Charlie…’

‘Believe me I was as shocked as you at first, Miles…’ she shrugged ‘I thought they were just weird dreams…’ the shadow of one of her wicked grins lifted the corners of her mouth…’you know, like wet dreams?’

Miles backed off, his hands up… ‘Whoa…don’t need to hear that…’

The grin got a little wider…’you’ve got to admit he’s a good looking guy, Miles…’ 

He rolled his eyes….’He’s fucking twenty years older than you, Charlie, and he’s had more women than you’ve skinned rabbits… He’s no good for you, you should have someone younger, someone without the crapload of baggage that he’s got on his back…’

She caught his gaze ‘that’s up to me to decide isn’t it? and what about my crapload of baggage, how can I expect a young guy understand any of that? And what the fuck does any of that stuff matter anyway?’ Her eyes held his and she stood very straight… ’What about you and my mom? What about Dad, Philadelphia? Nora, Maggie…Danny…. Why the hell should things like age matter or what someone’s done in the past? Where does the blaming stop, Miles?‘ She let out a long, long breath…‘at first I thought my subconscious was going all ‘lets deal with the trauma by fucking the monster under the bed,’ but then the thing in the barn happened…’ She stared up at him… ’He saved us, Miles - and he got you to stop drinking, at least for a while anyway. You said once that he was your best friend…maybe he really is trying to help?’

He stood there, just looking at her…

She put a hand on his arm, feeling the muscles tense under her fingers, ‘We need all the help we can get, Miles,’ she tipped her head towards the house where her mom and Aaron lay sleeping, ‘For them… otherwise it’s just you and me’ she leaned closer, willing him to understand…’ I saw what Monroe did in that barn, he’s a good fighter, really good; we need him, and we’ll need him more when we get to Willoughby because the Patriots are going to be there, waiting for us’

He closed his eyes for a moment… taking a long breath in…’Charlie… we don’t know if any of that’s true yet…’

Her eyes sparked, her lips in a tight line…’I believe him, Miles, why would he lie about that… I told you that he said Grandpa’s working with them; working with the people who dropped the bombs. And they want mom, because of what she knows, they want to use her in whatever they’re planning to do to the rest of us…’ 

She let go and turned away…’They’re the enemy, Miles, the Patriots, not Monroe, not anymore…’

He hadn’t said much after that, and for a minute she was worried that she’d said too much… He looked sort of shattered, older... Then he nodded, once, and headed into the house, leaving her on watch…

She found him later, in one of the empty rooms… He’d stripped and cleaned every weapon they had and was busy sharpening and oiling his blades… He just looked up at her and offered to do hers too – and she let him, even though it was a job she usually liked to do herself…

The rest of the day dragged by though, especially once she’d finished with the jerky… and by late afternoon, she desperately needed some time away from her mom’s vacant stare, and Miles and Aaron watching her in case she sprouted horns or something…

So she went back to the shed, making sure that no one followed her… 

It looked the same although it felt bigger without him in it… She sighed and spread herself out over the tarp covering the bonnet of the car, remembering the way it had felt with his hands, his lips on her… Then she slept… 

When she woke this time it was nearly dark, the remnants of a dream floating away like chaff in the wind…and it really had been only a dream because she’d seen Monroe riding over the mountains, two other horses trailing behind him, and there’d been something about a pack of cards…and a queen? Just ordinary, weird dream things…

She pulled herself together and headed back to the house… 

Miles was waiting on the front steps, his face carefully blank… ‘Your mom’s been asking for you, Charlie, I think she needs to…’ he shrugged… ‘You know…’

Charlie nodded and went past him with an apologetic smile, patting his shoulder as she went…’Sorry I was so long, Miles, I’m on it…’

…………………………………………

The next three days passed without incident, and somehow Charlie made it through them without yelling at her mom or Aaron – although Miles wasn’t so lucky… He decided that she needed more sword practice and over the course of those three days she developed a healthy albeit reluctant sympathy for the militia troops that he’d trained because he was a relentless, demanding and exacting teacher. By the end of the third day she was covered in bruises and ached from head to toe… She learned so much in those three days though that she decided to forgive him for being such a bastard. 

She also forgave him because he almost made her forget the worry eating at her bones that she was dead wrong, that maybe she had just dreamed it all, dreamed Monroe up, and that there was no point in staying here hoping that he’d come. Since she fell asleep in the shed, there’d been no sign of him, no dreams, nothing…

They’d finished practice and chores for the day and were all sitting round the rickety kitchen table, the doors and windows open to let the evening breeze in. Aaron was busy serving up a second round of the Venison stew he’d made with the greens and root vegetables they’d found growing wild out the back of the house and that he’d had simmering over the fire for most of the day... Even her mom had eaten some of it although Charlie had had to spoon it into her…. Miles on the other hand, had already finished his second bowl and was angling for a third…

Charlie leaned back in her chair and watched them. Her mom had some colour back in her cheeks although she still just stared into nothing most of the time; Aaron was almost smiling as he watched the stew disappear and Miles was looking fit and sun bronzed rather than haggard… She wished in a way that they could just stay here; maybe her mom just needed some sort of normal life for a while…

She was gazing out of the door towards the line of trees that marked the river when she saw them. Three horses, one in the lead and the others trailing, and a rider, just one, tall, slim but powerfully built, unmistakeable… Her breath stopped and she thought her heart did too, for a moment… She very carefully controlled them both but luckily Aaron and Miles were concentrating so hard on eating that neither of them noticed and her mom was busy gazing at nothing…

She stretched and yawned…’that was so good, Aaron…’

He looked over at her, face sad as always, although his eyes held just a little smile… ‘It was nice wasn’t it? I didn’t know just how much I missed potatoes until we found those…’

Miles was scraping his bowl, ‘I’ll help you dig up some more in the morning, Aaron; maybe we could have fries tomorrow?’

Charlie looked from one to the other…’why are you both drooling?’

Aaron sighed…’Fries’ 

‘mmm…’ Miles had a dreamy look on his face; it was kind of sweet…

She chuckled and got up…’I’m going out for a walk and check the traps…’ She grabbed her bow and water bottle and checked her knives…

Aaron held out a couple of empty water bottles…’do you want to fill these while you’re out?’

She nodded and slung them over her shoulders then ran out the door and down the steps, going at an easy lope towards the river, down to where she’d seen the rider. There was a spot on a bend a bit further along that would make a good campsite and it had looked as though he was headed that way... 

When she got to the trees she slowed down, listening for movement, smiling as she found their tracks, following the trail along the riverbank. Then she saw them, through the thin veil of trees; two horses, a mule by the looks and a tall figure, facing away from her; Monroe. He’d already unsaddled the horses and was unloading the mule, his movements calm and unhurried, the muscles in the strong back, arms and long legs moving in an elegant poetry of lift, swing, place and reach again.

She almost couldn’t believe it, he was here, he’d actually found them, found her; she snapped a twig with her foot then moved forward a couple of steps…

He stopped, holding very still… ‘Charlotte?’

She stepped out of the trees onto the soft grass of the clearing above the cutaway river bend and one of the horses, the black, raised its head to look at her for a moment, it’s dark eyes an unconcerned, limpid brown, then dropped again to keep munching on the rich grass… ‘You came…’

He turned to her, very slowly, as if he didn’t quite believe that she was actually there. 

She stared, her heart pounding, because this wasn’t a dream, and she couldn’t pretend it was anymore even if she wanted to… This was really him; really Monroe… A strange palimpset of images and remembered sensations poured through her mind, her body; him above her on the glowing, white sheets, holding her while she cried that time by the river, his body hot and so alive behind her in the shed, his tongue, his cock filling her till she burst into little boneless pieces under him…

His eyes were startlingly blue in the slanted evening light and seemed to catch rippling reflections from the river behind him. He was looking at her as though she wasn’t quite real, as though he thought she might just vanish at any moment… 

‘I thought I had to be getting close…’ He reached behind with one hand to check the mule’s tether, his eyes steady on her, then he walked towards her, stopping a few feet away… ‘Charlie, you look good’

She didn’t know what to say, didn’t know what to do either, because whatever she did now, whatever she said to him now would change things forever… The enormity of it stopped her breath…

Then the mule stepped quietly up behind him, put its head against his back and shoved…

Monroe staggered forward towards her, the look of surprised shock on his face bringing a laugh bubbling up from her belly and as he fell forward, arms flailing, trying unsuccessfully to keep his balance, Charlie suddenly found herself lying on the soft grass underneath a warm, hard male body that felt achingly familiar and excitingly new all at the same time… 

Charlie lay there, a little dazed, trying to get her breath back, he’d managed to somehow keep most of his weight off her but the sudden contact with the ground had knocked her breathless… 

She looked up and found him looking down at her, close enough that she could see each gold tipped eyelash around those endlessly blue eyes, and she was caught, held there helpless in the bottomless pools of hunger, need, hope and wonder… She licked her lips and his eyes dropped to watch, leaving her panting under him… and as soon as she had breath to spare she laughed again, ‘you should have seen your face, Monroe…’

‘It’s Bass, Charlie, my name’s Bass…’ he grinned, ‘yeah, she got me a good one…’ then he reached down and pulled a stick out from under his knee, throwing it a little way towards the river ’that damned mule…’ He leaned over onto his hip and sat up beside her, his tall frame solid, real…’I should have called her Rose…’

Charlie heard someone close by, a woman, laughing, and damn it her mom was the only other woman around here that she knew of, and she’d never, ever heard her mom laugh like that, happy, sweet, light… She lifted up onto her elbows and looked around; she couldn’t see anyone, but… ‘Is there someone else with you, Monroe? Who is she?’ She couldn’t help it, jealousy rose in her throat like bitter fruit… She glared at him...

Bass shook his head, ‘there’s no one else, Charlie, really…I mean, Rose isn’t exactly a person, she’s a, well she’s…’ he tried to find words that wouldn’t sound as though he’d lost his mind…’She was at the hotel, she was the one who helped me …do…all of this…’ he trailed off as he saw the look on her face…’Charlie, it’s true, you’ve got to believe me, Rose helped me find you…’

‘That’s…. crazy…’ she 

He shrugged, eyes holding hers….’Charlie, do you remember the riverbank… where you said it was warm? You told me it had been raining where you were, that you’d gone to an old barn to take shelter… remember?’

She nodded…

‘And the barn, those men? The ones that attacked you and Miles and the others?’

She nodded again, her eyes beginning to fill with something that looked like belief…

‘And the white sheets? The satin sheets, in the hotel room?’

‘Yeah…’ she nodded a third time, her tongue flicking out over her lips…

He jumped to his feet then hesitated; looking down at her as though he was afraid she was going to disappear… ‘Don’t go anywhere, ok?’ then he ran over to the pile of things he’d unloaded from the mule, rummaged around and pulled a tightly rolled bundle out. He brought it over…’Here Charlie, look, I brought them with me…’ he put the towel wrapped package down next to her…

She looked at it, then unrolled the towel and the soft, smooth white folds of the satin sheets from her dream spilled out over her lap… ‘Oh…’

Bass sat down next to her again, the evening sun catching in the blond tips of his curly hair and outlining his broad shoulders and long legs with a line of gold… He leaned towards her, his voice urgent, compelling… ’Something happened at that hotel, Charlie, something that brought me back from a really dark place, I was heading for Philly to see what was left, then this, you… happened…’ He ran his hand over the folds of soft material on the ground next to her…

Charlie watched the hand; his fingers were fine, strong but slim, well shaped… She remembered how gentle he’d been when he held her… 

He took a deep breath, and kept going… ’Rose said she died at the hotel sometime after the blackout, and that she was just a shadow there until the night of the Tower. Then, after your mom did whatever she did and the bombs fell and the lightening just lit the sky…’ he took a deep breath, ‘something happened, maybe during the surge? Something that changed her, made her strong enough to effect things, to do things…’ He shrugged…’I don’t know why, or how, or what it means…’ he leaned closer…’but you, and me? It has to mean something, Charlie, Rose said that we could make a difference against the Patriots, all of us working together, you and me and Miles…’ He looked a little pained….’and Staypuft, and your Mom too I guess…’

Charlie put one of her hands over his, lacing her fingers through his, the soft fabric beneath them feeling cool and smooth… and she remembered finding herself in that bed the first time, shocked to see that the body she’d been rubbing herself against belonged to Sebastian Monroe… then deciding not to care, because it was a dream… Then with each new dream, she’d realized that he wasn’t the monster that she’d thought he was, that like all of them, he’d been blown apart by the world they found themselves in...  
He went very still…looking down at their joined hands, skin looking tanned and dark against the white satin… ‘Charlie?’

‘Yeah?’ she moved a little closer…

‘I don’t want you to think that I’m assuming anything…’ he cleared his throat…’I’ll still be here to help you and Miles… whatever you decide to do… about me, I mean...’

Charlie let go of his hand and got to her knees… ‘I know you will….’ She grinned up at him, ‘now have you got a blanket to go under this sheet? I don’t want to get grass stains on it…’

……………………………………….

A little later, and it was almost as though they were back in the hotel…They’d lain the sheets down on a flat, grassy spot, sheltered by some low trees…

There were few words spoken but Charlie felt his eyes on her like hot blue beams, his fingers grazing hers as they arranged the bedding, her hip brushing against the top of his thigh, strands of her hair, caught in the breeze of their movements and clinging to his shoulders, his back… She could smell his sweat, the warm, spicy scent of his body, and her belly tightened in anticipation, excitement…

Then when their bed was ready, he kicked off his boots then knelt down to undo hers… 

She leaned her hands on his shoulders so he could ease them off her feet. Then he reached up and undid her belt, and her jeans, sliding the material down her legs and off, one leg at a time…

He stroked a hand, very gently over the bruises marching down the side of her hip and thigh…’what happened?’

Charlie grinned…’Miles said I needed some sword practice…’

‘Didn’t he tell you to wear a few extra layers of padding?’ 

‘It slowed me down’ she shrugged…’its ok, it’ll help me remember what not to do…’ 

He leaned forward and pressed kisses along the soft curve of her hip, his scruff tickling and sending  
shivers of goose flesh up to her waiting nipples and down to her pulsing clit… then, still kneeling, he ran his hands up under her tank top, sliding it up over her breasts until she caught the edges and reefed it up and off, tossing it down. 

Her bra went next; then she ran her fingers through his hair, enjoying the feel of the tight curls as he pressed kisses around her breasts, teasing her nipples with lips and teeth until she was writhing against him…his hands stroking her from her shoulders down to the springy cheeks of her ass, pulling her closer.

‘You’ve got too many clothes on…’ she somehow managed to say it between panting breaths, while he had one of her nipples between his lips, sucking and nibbling, his hands busy between her legs, his fingers somehow finding every sweet spot she had… 

He laughed against her skin… the sound rippling through her, sending waves of sensation rocketing down to her toes…

And suddenly his shirt and tee were off; flung off to the side… his jeans gone the same way, and then he was there, kneeling naked in front of her… The last rays of the sun and the first of the moon striping them both in patterns of light and shadow that danced across them with the evening breeze…

Charlie caught her breath, he was so beautiful, muscles taut, every one defined, his abdomen rippling, his cock rising hard and proud against his belly… and now she did believe in magic, or something like it, because something had brought him here, to her; her magic man…

He came closer… his eyes on hers… then he reached out and slid his hands up her legs, his thumbs stroking the sensitive skin at the top of her thighs, moving in little circles closer to the soft curls between her legs. He smiled up at her, although his eyes were so hot, so intensely…something… 

She could hardly breath…

‘I was thinking of you every minute of every day I spent riding over those mountains, Charlie…’

She was lost in those eyes, in the hands on her…her head fell forward and she reached for his shoulders just to keep upright…while he… she sucked in a breath, her belly tightening… his thumbs were holding the fleshy lips of her pussy wide while his lips and tongue played with her clit, his tongue sliding back to her core, slipping in and out and making her forget about everything else in the world but him…

She almost fell when he pulled back, his lips and chin glossy with her juices, but he caught her and swung her down beside him…laughing as she gasped…

Then she felt his arms round her, his legs slipping between hers, hers opening wide to let him in…his cock, hard, thick… and then he was inside her and she was laughing too because it felt so… damn…good to have him there, at last… She wrapped her legs round him, her feet rubbing up and down his calves, her hands in his, his lips on her cheek, the side of her neck… as he moved in and out of her, slow and deep…and so, so sweet… 

She tightened her inside muscles around him, feeling him gasp as she did it… ‘I dreamed of you too…’ She went still for a moment…’I dreamed that you were riding a black horse and leading two others…’ her eyes met his…’and you were… Bass, I don’t think I know what’s real anymore…’

He smiled down at her, his eyes very calm, very sure…’I’m real, Charlie, this is real…’ then he kissed her…

Charlie felt uncertainty drift away. His lips were warm and firm, his body hard and strong around hers, his cock, thrusting hard and strong and so full of life, in her… She kissed him back…

…………………………………….

Back at the house, Miles watched the moonrise from the porch. He’d seen the horses too, and recognised the rider, although he didn’t think Charlie knew he had.. He sighed and reached for his water bottle… She’d looked more alive in the moments after she spotted Bass coming than he’d seen her for months… He didn’t know how to feel about that yet, or about the rest of the crazy shit that seemed to happening around them at the moment… But what he did know was that he needed to keep it together, for Charlie – and Rachel, now more than ever…

He looked at his bottle of whisky, and decided he could hold out for another day…

……………………………………….

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi, I hope you enjoyed this, it was one of those chapters that just took off... anyway, I'll see where the muse leads me... thanks so much for reading, please let me know what you think if you have a moment. I'm not sure if there should be more, cheers, Magpie


	7. Sweet dreams and flying machines

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author’s note:  
> Hi there and thanks so much for having a look at this, and for enjoying it so far… ☺ The story is based on prompts from the Orgy Armada’s Revolution, The Second Coming. I don’t own any part of Revolution and am writing this purely for love of the show and its characters.
> 
> The title of this chapter is taken from the lyrics of James Taylor's 'Fire and Rain'

Charlie leaned back against the warm, muscled shoulder that she was using as a pillow and gazed up at the first stars as they appeared in the sky above them. It was like a veil was suddenly lifted away because one moment the sky was a clear, darkening ombre blue and then there they were, like masses of beautiful scattered campfire lights, somewhere off in the distance, far, far away…

‘Cities used to look like that at night when we flew over them…’ Monroe’s voice rumbled in her ear…

She stroked her hand over his chest and pressed a kiss against the strong lines of his throat… ‘I can’t believe people trusted those great clunky things to stay up in the air… it’s just crazy’

He pulled her tighter against his side and she felt him chuckle… ‘Maybe… but people went up in them anyway, all the time… it was the fastest way to get anywhere, Miles hated it though, he threw up before every single jump…’

She leaned back so she could see his face…’Jump? 

‘Out of the plane…’

Her eyes widened…’Why the hell would you want to do that?’ 

Bass flipped them round and suddenly she was underneath him, his eyes and teeth shining as he grinned down at her, his cock, thick and long and deliciously hard nuzzling in between her legs… ‘We were Marines, Charlie, jumping out of planes was part of the deal…’

‘But why did you have to jump - and why didn’t you die?’

‘A lot of our missions were in other countries…’ His eyes gleamed down at her, somehow catching the light from the moon… ‘So we’d fly in and parachute down over the target…’ He laughed, teeth flashing, when he saw the confusion on her face… ‘A parachute’s like a big sail that you strap on and that stops you from falling too fast…’ then he laughed again as her eyes opened wide in horror… ’I’ll tell you about it later, Ok?’ He leaned over to kiss her, his tongue flicking out over her lips… ‘ I’d rather think about you…’

Charlie sighed, her lips tingling, ‘I’m glad we don’t have planes anymore…I’d much rather use my legs or a good horse,’ her eyes glinted up at him… ’Or I could just ride you all day…’ 

He lifted an eyebrow, grinning…’now that’s a thought…’

She laughed back up at him ‘Hell, yeah…’ then she wriggled her ass and met his cock halfway, wrapping her legs round his thighs…feeling his thick cock head slip in, just a little way, then out again, little movements that had her gasping in moments, her clit so sensitised from the earthquakes that had already rocked her world that every single nerve ending went from idle to full gallop in a couple of seconds. She laughed, a little breathless, watching those blue eyes narrow in concentration as he worked on hitting the sweet spot inside her again…. Miles must have been right about the rabbits because the man really, really, really knew his stuff… She ran her hands up the muscled pillars of his arms, her fingers roaming over the taut muscles, along his neck, playing with his scruff, her toes sliding up and down his hair roughened legs as he slid his cock in and out of her; every bone in her body feeling relaxed and so, so fucking good…

Then she gasped, her lips parted as he pulled out for a moment, flipped one of her legs over and came into her from behind, thrusting deeper, harder this time, a hand reaching around in front to play with her clit, his lips and teeth biting softly over the sensitive skin of her neck and shoulders, breath hot, his tongue leaving a cool trail behind… The tight, soft curls between his legs and the soft globes of his balls slapped against her as he moved in and out, and she curved her back, giving him more of her ass, one of his legs between hers, his arm under her knee keeping her wide open, his eyes half closed as his cock stretched her out, their bodies moving together as he fucked her, speeding the rhythm then slowing again, the angle letting his cock slide over her sweet spot on the way out and on the way back in again, making her cry out her pleasure each time… 

His eyes blazed down at her over her shoulder, somehow catching light from the moon as he kissed his way towards her lips, his tongue flicking out over her skin leaving trails of sensation… 

Then her breath caught again as he picked up the pace, thrusting all the way in, and Charlie felt her body buzzing higher and higher as moved inside her, so thick, so full, the satin sheets sliding beneath them and the grass a soft cushion under that, his body warm and big and so strong behind her, surrounding her… She could feel him getting close too, could feel his breath thundering in time with his cock moving in and out… 

Then he stopped, holding himself still inside her for a long, long moment; beads of sweat running down his skin as he held himself back, again, he hadn’t let himself come and they’d been fucking for what felt like hours… 

Then she stopped thinking as she tipped over the edge of the world again and the star filled sky fractured into colours that pulsed and vibrated with the rhythm in her blood… 

He waited for her, moving in long, slow strokes until she started to come down from the high, then he carefully, slowly, pulled out, the lines of his face tight with concentration, sitting up and leaning back on his heels. He was breathing hard, cock still heavy and proud against his belly, the broad head bobbing in little jerking movements that showed her just how close he was. Then he reached down, his eyes never leaving hers, taking his cock between his fingers, the thumb stroking up over the heavy ridge around the head, fingers wrapped around the thick shaft, bringing himself off in a few short strokes, his seed landing in long, ropy spurts onto the grass beside their bed, his eyes closing as he came, head dropping back, the long lines of his throat sloping down into the hard curves of his chest and six pack, then into the long, strong legs making him look like some statue in books she’d seen, ages ago…

Charlie watched, the night air cool on the heated flesh between her legs, her eyes soft and heavy as she looked at the man kneeling in front of her, his body gleaming with sweat… He was perfect, beautiful… and each time he’d made love to her he’d put her pleasure before his, and while she didn’t have that many others to compare him to she somehow didn’t think that was a universal characteristic… 

Then he leaned towards her, running his hands down her body and over her breasts, fingers light as they circled her well kissed nipples…down over her belly, hovering at the junction of hip and thigh, the roughened skin of his thumbs skittering over her skin, making her shiver… Then down further to her pussy, her fleshy lower lips still open to him, the curls around her cleft damp and springy, her legs spread wide around his… 

He smiled as he looked at her; his fingertips brushing lightly over those curls making her whole belly tighten with excitement and anticipation for what they could to do next, what they could do whenever they wanted, wherever they wanted now that he really was here… 

Then his eyes got deep, serious, ’you’re one gorgeous woman, Charlie… but we’ve both got to remember that this isn’t a dream now, even if you’re like every fucking good dream I ever had rolled into one…’

Charlie’s eyes widened as realization hit…’Oh, ok… so that’s why you didn’t… I mean why you….’

He nodded…’we can’t take the risk of making a baby right now, Charlie,’ he looked down, one of his hands gently stroking her belly…’this’d be a really bad time to have to deal with something like that…’

Something went through his eyes then that Charlie couldn’t quite understand… a deep, awful, sadness... 

She caught his hand, weaving her fingers through his, ‘what is it?’

He looked at her again; the moonlight catching the glint of moisture in his eyes…’I was just thinking of something…’

‘You can tell me if you want…’ she squeezed his hand, ‘I want to understand what happened to you, and Miles, my mom…there’s so much I don’t know, and no one wants to talk about it…’

He took a deep breath… ‘That’s because most of it’s hard to talk about…’ he leaned over and kissed her again, ’You’re something else, Charlie…’ he nodded….’Ok…It wasn’t long after the blackout, and things were still really basic... I was married…to a…lovely woman…’ he stroked her face with his free hand… ’Lovely in a different way…’ He looked off into the distance, his eyes shadowed…’Shelley was pregnant, she was strong, healthy, got all the way to nine months with no troubles at all, but something went horribly wrong during labour and we lost our little girl the day she was born, and I lost Shelley too…’ 

Charlie’s eyes filled, ‘Oh no….’

His thumb was moving back and forth over her knuckles but he didn’t seem to notice…‘I thought there was nothing good left in the world after that, and I suppose I started behaving that way - and Miles? He’d been my brother for so long I just took it for granted that he’d always be there, and I didn’t even realize that things had changed until I woke up one night and he was pointing a gun at me…’ The thumb stopped then started up again, gently. His face was pensive, thoughtful… ‘And then there was the thing with your mom…and your brother…’ he frowned and caught her eyes…’I’m so sorry, Charlie, it started out that we wanted to do something to stop all the craziness and it all ended up going wrong…’

Charlie pulled in a deep breath…’It wasn’t just you, Bass, Miles did things too…and the blackout wouldn’t have happened at all without my mom and dad…’ 

The stuff about Shelley and the baby was new and so, so sad, and she still didn’t know what had happened to change Miles, or why he ran away to that bar in Chicago planning on drinking himself to death. ‘Miles said you were his best friend…’ she leaned forward so she could see his face, ‘In Philly, when we were in the tunnels on our way there to get Danny’

‘Did he?’ his lips twitched at the corners… ‘When everything was happening at the Tower I stood there in front of him, told him to finish the job and shoot me…and he still couldn’t do it, he said I’d been asking the wrong question, that I should have been asking why he couldn’t kill me, not why he’d tried to, then he said we’d always be brothers, that nothing would change that…’ 

‘So he cared enough about you to let you go?’

He nodded… ‘Miles and me, we have a lot of history, a lot of baggage, but we’ve been brothers too long to be anything else…at least I hope so,’ He kissed her hand again. ‘There’s something else, Charlie, something you deserve to know... ‘

‘You don’t have to tell me…’ she could almost feel the weight of those memories, there was so much the survivors of the blackout carried around with them…

‘Yes I do…’ he held her gaze…‘because I want you to know how important family is to me…’ he looked down then back at her… ‘I have a son, Charlie, with a woman called Emma, she’s dead now, she died that day in Jasper when I was trying to get to Miles, she was engaged to Miles at the time we… you know…’ he swallowed…’I’m not proud of it, but it happened’ he shook his head…’I don’t know why she never told me, I’d have looked after her, and the baby… but I never knew, and now I don’t know where he is, fuck, I didn’t even know he existed until a few months ago, but I’m going to go find him if he’s still alive, once we get these Patriots sorted out… ‘ 

He took a long, dragging breath in… ‘So now you know, bits of it anyway, the rest of it can keep for another day maybe, if you decide you want to know…’ He cleared his throat…’and I’m sorry that it’s all landed on you now…’ Then he sat there, waiting for her to say something…

Charlie kept her eyes on his; so much more was making sense about him now… ’The thing about Shelley and your baby girl, that happened before the Republic, before all the President Monroe stuff, didn’t it?’

He nodded... ‘Its no excuse, but I’ve often wondered what would have happened if things had been different…’

She lay back…’I told Miles that the blaming has to stop’ she held his gaze ‘and that you aren’t the enemy any more, the Patriots are’ she settled back on the white sheets, looking up at him with calm eyes…’So if we’re really going to fight them then we’re going to have to work together…’

He just looked at her and choked off a sort of laugh ‘Maybe we should put you in charge, Charlie’ then he smiled…’I think you’d do a better job than we ever did…’ he leaned over and kissed her, his lips warm, firm on hers, his hands sliding over her shoulders and down… 

Charlie felt him take another huge breath and let it out in a long sigh, his tall body relaxing into hers… Somewhere, up in the trees, a night bird called… and a little way away there was the rustle and chomp of the horses grazing… She looked up at the moon and suddenly realised how late it was getting…’I have to get dressed and go relieve Miles, Bass,’ it was getting so easy to call him that now… ‘It’ll be my turn on watch soon’ 

Bass nodded, his hair tickling her skin… ‘I’ll take a turn too, it’ll be easier with three of us…and I guess I’d better show Miles that I’m real and not a ghost…’ he looked up and smiled ‘You are something very special, Charlotte Matheson…’ Then he pulled her head towards his and kissed her again, long and deep… his lips firm, his tongue meeting hers in a dance that had them both panting…

Charlie drew back a little…‘I’ll go get him, Aaron can watch mom for a little while…’ she held his gaze… ’Can I trust you and Miles not to do anything stupid like punching each other out or trying to kill each other?’ 

He grinned, rueful, teeth gleaming, his eyes crinkling at the edges…’I’ll do my best…’ he shrugged…’but you know Miles, he’s as stubborn as that mule…’ then his face got very serious…’You know that I came here because of you, Charlie – but now I’m here… I need to find some way to show Miles how bad these Patriot guys really are…’ He sat up, reaching for his tee ‘because we are going to have to get serious about finding some reinforcements…’ He passed Charlie her tank and jeans, ‘and I don’t know where they’re come from unless we can get Texas on side – or find some way to get the Georgia and Republic remnants together and make peace with the Plains Nations…

Charlie stared at him…’you’re talking about starting a war against the Patriots aren’t you…’

He nodded…’Damn straight…it’s the only way I can think of to stop them in their tracks, and I haven’t seen or heard of anyone else organizing any sort of resistance yet, have you?’ He nodded again when she shook her head… then he pulled his old tee shirt over his head and arms in a couple of smooth moves and started on his pants, ‘and we’ve got to get ourselves organised before they roll right on over us….’ 

He leaned towards her, his eyes boring into hers…’Charlie, these guys used nukes on their own country,’ he shrugged again… ‘And I think the only reason they didn’t bomb Austin too was that the fallout would have covered half the map….’ His face was grim… ‘And if they’re willing to do something like that, what else are they willing to do?’

She stared at him then pulled her tank down over her head, standing up to pull her jeans on, ‘I don’t know, but I was there when Randall Flynn pushed that button and said he was a Patriot, and it was pretty obvious that he was one crazy son of a bitch…’ 

He stood up and dragged his pants on…’yeah, and I walked him in the fucking front door…’

She frowned…’and my mom thought that turning the power on for Randall Flynn was more important than saving Nora… I thought we were going to stop the blame thing, Bass…’

He looked at her…’I didn’t know about Nora, I’m sorry…’

Charlie pulled her jeans up and fastened them too then she stepped up close, her eyes narrowed, ‘I’m sorry too, we’ve all got things we’re sorry about, but we don’t have time for all that crap… right now we need to get my mom to Grandpa Gene without making her any worse, which means you have to stay out of sight…’

He nodded…’I’m more than happy to oblige, Charlie,’ an eyebrow lifted… ‘Your mom and me? Saying we don’t get on doesn’t even come close…’ he frowned… ‘Rachel could have turned the power back on years ago, she knew how to do it, so why didn’t she?’

Charlie smiled, although her eyes were sad…‘Because of Danny; the nano was keeping him alive…’ she shrugged and let a long breath out…’Mom talks in her sleep - if they’d turned the nano off and the power had gone on while Danny was alive, he would have died, just like that…’

Bass stared at her…’so once Danny was dead, she had nothing to lose by turning the power back on… ‘ He blew a breath out through his teeth…’I knew there had to be a reason, and I guess I can even sort of understand it, but all those years, all those other people, Charlie…’

She nodded…’yeah, I’ve thought about that too…’

‘No wonder you’re mom lost it after Randall did what he did…’ his eyes were full of something… compassion? ‘Rachel thought she was finally doing the right thing, giving power back to the people and then that maniac dropped the bombs and let the Patriots in…’ 

Her full lips tightened in a line, her eyes slanting up at him, ‘that’s my mom, she always thinks she’s right, even if she’s dead wrong… like a couple of other people I know?’ The mouth twitched…‘so maybe I’ll take you up on the me being in charge thing…’ This time her lips curved in a smile that showed teeth…’I mean, you two messed things up pretty badly the last time you tried to run things, and I want to make sure you don’t do it again’ she walked up close and poked his shoulder… ‘So you are going to include me in any plans you and Miles put together, Ok?’

He laughed, shaking his head at the same time…’Oh, Charlie, you might not have spent much time with your mom growing up, but you are a hell of a lot like her…’

She just grinned at him, eyes promising retribution later…

Before they left he picked up his swords, gun and the pack of cards, he chuckled… just the bare necessities…

………………………………………

Miles leaned on the rail at the front of the house and looked out towards the river. It all looked peaceful enough, the trees swaying gently in a light breeze, the moon casting shadows that danced over the silvery grey of the grass and the winding track leading from the house to the road in the distance…the horizon just starting to lighten up as the sun rose, he sighed… just the usual romantic crap and he had been trying so fucking hard not to think about any of that… 

Then he saw them, Charlie and Bass; walking towards him, together, just like it wasn’t totally weird to see his niece and General fucking Monroe strolling along like it was a Sunday outing and they were sweethearts going to a dance… Bass was keeping to the tree line though, out of direct line of sight from the house so Charlie must have warned him about her mom… Then Miles saw him sink back into the shadows and Charlie came on alone, waving…

She walked up to the bottom of the steps and looked up at him, her hair blowing around her face and a grin from ear to ear… ‘Hey, Miles….’ She tipped her head towards the trees…’I got someone over there who wants to prove to you that he’s not a ghost…’

Miles took a long slow breath, his hands wrapped around the top rail… ‘This might not be such a good idea, Charlie, the last time we were together we beat the crap out of each other…’ He reached towards his pocket for his flask then pulled his hand back again; empty…

She came a bit closer, her voice a low whisper on the breeze ‘so maybe you both got it out of your system then, come on, Miles, you told me he was your best friend…’

He breathed out again… ‘I know, it’s just all this weird shit, Charlie…I don’t get it… How did he find us?’

‘I told you… he saw it in a dream…’

‘That’s impossible, Charlie’

She made a shushing motion with her hands…’keep it down, Miles’ Her eyes snapped up at him, ‘I know it sounds impossible, but it happened…’ she glanced back at the river…’as well as other things…’

He chewed his lip…’ok, I’ll come down, but if his head starts spinning round I’m outta there…’

She gave him a ‘what the fuck’ look…

‘It’s from a movie, Charlie…about demons and stuff like that’

She scratched her head…’Demons? Really Miles, get a grip’

He held his hands up, walked down the steps and followed her across the grass… Up ahead his best friend, best enemy and former co-general stepped out from under the shadow of the trees…. 

‘Hey, Miles…’

‘Bass…’

Bass came a little closer…’A thank you would be nice…’

‘I had it covered….’

‘The hell you did, I fucking saved your ass…’ 

Miles shook his head, as though he was shooing a fly…’So how long have you been following us, Bass?’ he took a couple of steps forwards, his voice getting louder… ’And what’s with the stupid ghost story? Was it just to get close to Charlie…for fuck’s sake, that’s low,...’ his hands clenched into fists…’She might believe that.... that crap, but I don’t…’

Charlie stepped between them, her face set… ‘That’s enough, Miles…’

Behind her, Bass jerked suddenly, as though he’d been hit, then he dropped like a stone…

‘Shit…get down, Charlie…’ Miles grabbed her and swung them both to the ground, his eyes scanning round for whatever or whoever it was… ‘Bass? You ok?’

Charlie crawled over to check him out. She couldn’t see any blood but there wasn’t enough light yet to see properly, she shook his arm…’Bass? What happened?’

‘Charlie…?’ he lifted his head cautiously…’Stay down…’

She flattened herself to the ground…’I didn’t hear any shots, what happened?’

Miles had a gun in one hand and his sword in the other; he was crouched low behind a bush… ’I can’t see anything… where’re you hit, Bass?’ 

‘I’m not hit…something grabbed me, pulled me over…’ 

There was something on the ground nearby; Charlie could see some pale shapes… ‘What’s that, next to your sword?’

Miles scooted over…’I’m going to do a sweep… stay here…’

Charlie reached out a hand and grabbed the end of his coat…’Miles; wait…’ she sat up, still staying low, but there were no shots, nothing moved around them… ‘Look…’

He glanced across, then did a double take…‘What the fuck?’

Two Tarot cards were lying on the ground next to Bass and in front of Charlie - placed perfectly straight…

Bass sat up and reached into his pocket, pulled out the box of cards, and held it out to her…

Charlie took it, the box looked closed at both ends…‘it feels like the other cards are inside…’ 

‘The last time this happened two bounty hunters showed up’ He winced and pulled a stone out from under his right butt cheek…

Miles shuffled closer ‘you mean this happened before?’

He nodded…’Rose said to check the cards each morning, that she’d try to warn me if anything was wrong’ 

‘So who the fuck’s Rose?’

Bass looked a little embarrassed…’She’s the one who’s been helping me, Miles, she’s how I knew where to find you?’

‘You have got to be kidding me…’

Charlie butted in…‘I heard her laughing, Miles, tonight, and I think she made the mule shove Bass…’ she shrugged, ‘but it doesn’t matter really, does it? Help is help wherever it comes from…’ she turned back… ’So what do you think the cards mean, Bass?’

He leaned forwards to have a look, ’the first one’s a ten of swords…’ he frowned… ‘If it’s like last time, it means that we should expect company soon… and maybe more than one or two…’ 

Then he picked up the second card. A skeletal figure stood in a bare field, holding a scythe…’Death?’ 

Miles snorted, ’Well, that’s all kinds of helpful…’

One of the horses down by the river suddenly whickered, the sound travelling easily in the clear air of early dawn…

And from down the road came an answering whicker, along with the clip clop of hooves and the sound of wagon wheels… 

…………………………………..

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AN: I hope you’re enjoying this, please let me know what you think if you have a moment; this story seems to be taking on its own momentum and I think it might go on for a bit longer, so hope to see you at the next chapter… cheers, and thanks for reading ☺ Magpie


	8. A shade of sadness

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rose and the Tarot cards have warned Bass, Charlie and Miles that trouble is coming, they head off to investigate...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author’s note:   
> Hi there and thanks so much for having a look at this, and for enjoying it so far, I hope you enjoy this next bit, another long one, but worth it I hope… ☺ The story is based on prompts from the Orgy Armada’s Revolution, The Second Coming. The chapter title is from a poem by J G Whittier. I don’t own any part of Revolution and am writing this purely for love of the show and its characters.

Charlie followed Bass and Miles as they ghosted through the trees towards the road and the shelter of the hedge that bordered it. She’d never admit it but she was having a hard time keeping up – the two of them had dropped into some sort of secret soldier zone and were zigzagging from cover to cover, keeping out of sight of the road; occasionally giving each other hand signals that someone had better be planning to teach her the meaning of pretty fucking soon or she would be really, really pissed. Then Bass turned and caught her eye – a wide grin on his face, his teeth gleaming white… 

Charlie couldn’t help grinning back; the man was practically skipping. So much for big bad General Monroe... She moved on to the next tree, following his lead. She was finding it harder and harder to match the Bass she was coming to know with the starched and paranoid General she’d met in Philly and who’d saved her life back in the Tower. This was a Bass she could imagine growing up with Miles, a brother, someone Miles wouldn’t, couldn’t kill… She hoped he’d kept some of the General’s ruthlessness though, she had a feeling they’d need it… 

Miles turned to check on her too, saw her grin, did a double take to Bass then back to her and narrowed his eyes. Then he tipped his head towards a thick bit of hedge…’If you’ve finished making googoo eyes at each other, I think that’s our best vantage point…’

Bass caught her eye, his grin even wider; his teeth white in his sun-bronzed face and his eyes a brilliant shining blue…’I don’t know how you move so fast with that stick up your ass, Miles…‘ 

Charlie chuckled when she heard Miles growl something under his breath…

When they were in position, crouched behind some thick bushes, Miles pulled a pair of binoculars out of a pocket and had a look, the newcomers were still a way down the road and just visible in the early light of dawn… ‘Khaki uniforms, American flags on the sleeves; I’m guessing they’re Patriots…I count ten on foot, two on the wagon, can’t see any outriders…’ He handed the glasses to Bass, passing them over Charlie’s head, totally ignoring her outstretched hand - and her scowl…’I’m beginning to think there might be something to those weird cards of yours…’

Bass peered down the road…’Rosie’s been right on the mark so far’ he shifted to get a better angle, rubbing the bruise on his butt from his fall earlier… ‘Even if she does overdo the ‘pay attention to me’ stuff sometimes…’ he handed the glasses down to Charlie….

She took them with a tight smirk, and focused on the wagon, ‘I see some boxes in the back… Wrapped up in blankets? Looks like supplies of some kind, something fragile I guess… but why only one wagon?’

Miles reached for the glasses again… ‘I’m thinking we should find out…’ he studied the oncoming convoy ‘Soldiers are one thing, it’s the Death card I’m worried about…’

Bass stood up cautiously, keeping his head low, and checked his gun...’I’m down to two rounds and my swords…’

Miles reached into a pocket in his coat and pulled out a box, tossing it over Charlie’s head…’Here…’

Bass chuckled…’still haven’t run out, Miles?’

Miles allowed himself a tight smile…’Don’t ever intend to, Bass…’ he looked through the glasses again… ‘What do you think…Skippack?

‘I was thinking Phoenixville’

Charlie looked from one to the other…’What are you talking about?’

‘Phoenixville it is…’ Miles turned to her ‘Charlie, we need you to distract the guys on the wagon while me and Bass take care of the others…’ he looked her up and down, eyes narrowed…’Lose the jacket and the crossbow and look helpless; tell em you’re lost or something…’ he shrugged…’you know… keep them looking at you, then be ready to grab the horses…’

Her eyebrows had been getting higher…’is that all? Don’t you want a song and dance routine? Or juggling maybe?’

Bass patted her on the butt, ’just wriggle that lovely ass, you’ll have ‘em eating out of your hand…’

Miles had stood up too and was checking his own weapons, ’keep your hands to yourself, Bass, at least in front of me, or I might forget who I’m supposed to be shooting at.’

Charlie grabbed the hand and kept it right where it was, her eyes narrowed as she glared at Miles…’Quit it, Miles.’ She let go, reefed her bow strap over her head and stripped off her jacket, dropping them both on the ground, then turned to a slightly startled Bass, reaching up to pull his head down for a kiss.

Bass kept half an eye on Miles, just in case, then forgot all about him for a long, sweet, moment as he lost himself in that kiss… Charlie’s lips were warm and soft, her tongue flicking out to play with his, her legs framing his, her denim covered pussy hot against his thigh. His arms tightened around her lush, strong curves, and then his cock forgot all about Miles too...

She laughed, her hands snaking up around his neck as she pulled him even closer, her fingers playing with the curls at the base of his neck, one of her legs pressing in between his, feeling his cock jumping to attention against her thigh…

Miles cleared his throat and waited a moment, but when they kept on ignoring him he turned and stomped away…’I suppose I’ll go kill the patriots myself then…’ he shrugged…’I feel like killing something…’

Some part of Bass’ brain registered that his oldest friend was more than usually pissed and he reluctantly untangled his arms from around Charlie…

Her eyes were hazy and her lips pink and swollen as she stepped back…’Um… what was that, Miles?’

He growled something else under his breath, sighed heavily, then turned back to them…’I said… If we’re going to do this, lets do it for fuck’s sake…’

…………………………………………..

Charlie looked down into the crates they’d opened up, one was full of carefully wrapped small medicine bottles, the crate next to it was held what appeared to be about an equal number of small glass vials and re-usable syringes…She picked one of the bottles up, holding it up so she could see the clear fluid inside moving around…’So what do you think they are?’

‘Careful with that, Charlie…’ Miles pointed at a symbol on the bottle label, ‘that means biohazard’ and then he showed her the same symbol enclosed in a triangle on the vials in the second crate, ‘and that’s the symbol for vaccine’ he shook his head, ‘looks like they’ve got enough here to infect a small city, his eyes narrowed…’If I had to guess I’d say it looks like they’re planning to start an epidemic or ten...’ He frowned, ‘and maybe only save the people they want to save…’

Charlie put the bottle back, very, very carefully… ‘So the vaccine keeps the Patriots and their friends safe?’

Miles shook his head…’maybe…’ he lifted the lid of another crate, there were more of the bottles and vials in that one too, ‘there’s a hell of a lot more of the biohazard stuff than there is vaccine by the looks of it…’

Bass came around the wagon, wiping his hands on a blood smeared cloth, he tipped his head back towards a limp figure tied to one of the wheels…’He didn’t know much about the stuff in the crates except that they were all warned not to touch it. But I was right; they were heading to Texas…’ He pulled a piece of heavy gauge paper out of an oilskin wallet. ‘He was carrying this,’ he put the wallet down then spread the paper out on one of the unopened crates. It was a map of Texas with some of the towns outlined in red, Willoughby amongst them. There was writing across the blank space at the bottom in some sort of flowing script…

Charlie squinted at it…’so what does it say?’

Miles shrugged; ‘Beat’s me…’ he looked at the paper then over at Bass, ‘are the rest of them in Arabic too?’

Bass nodded…’It’s a pretty good code really, there wouldn’t be that many people around who would be able to read it, we’ll need to find someone else to translate though…’ He tipped his head back to the Patriot tied to the wagon wheel…’Guy had a fucking cyanide tooth, died before I could ask him much.‘ He handed the wallet to Miles… ‘Most of those were sealed, meant for their CO. Our guy said they were meeting up with the rest of their platoon just this side of Texas, said he’s travelling with a guy called Andover’

Miles frowned…’Andover?’ 

‘You know him?’

‘The name’s familiar, but I can’t place it’ 

Charlie looked at the two of them together, her uncle Miles - former General aka the butcher of Baltimore and Sebastian Monroe, former despot and leader of the Republic. She was still amazed at the way they’d worked together; it had been as good a demonstration of speed, coordination and deadly force as she’d ever seen and it made the stories she’d heard about the two of them seem a whole lot more believable… 

They’d mown and sliced their way through the ten Patriots in what had felt like moments… she’d barely had time to look helpless, wiggle her ass and start telling her story before Bass was up on the bench seat of the wagon slitting the throat of the guy riding shotgun and Miles had the driver out cold on the road… all she had had to do then was keep the horses from running off and once she secured their harness to the pommel on the bench seat, that was all good too…

She shook her head to clear it, damn, she was suddenly ravenous…‘why don’t we get the dead guys out of sight and go get something to eat?’

Bass grinned, jumping up onto the wagon ‘If I know soldiers, and I do… I’m betting they’ve got a few little luxuries hidden away in here…’ He rummaged through the supply chest under the seat, grunting in satisfaction…’guys, you’ll be happy to know we’ve got flour, beans… dried fruit and other stuff, and some jerky’ he tossed a paper wrapped parcel down to Charlie…

She caught it with a smile, peeling back the paper and having a look, ‘thanks”

‘And…’ he reached into a box pushed right at the back, pulling out a bottle, ’some whiskey…’ he tossed the bottle over the side… ‘They must have gone shopping at the last town’.

Miles reached up and caught the bottle mid flight, ‘If there’s any coffee in there I might even let you have some of this.’

Bass pulled out a waxed hessian bag, putting it to his nose and taking a deep sniff…’we’re in luck…’ he threw the bag back, ‘there’s at least four more bags in here, Miles, and another couple of bottles so you can have that one all to yourself…’ 

He jumped down again, then went around the front to check the horses…’Dead guys first, then breakfast, ok?’

……………………………………

Bodies rolled into the ditch behind the hedge and covered over, they headed back to the house, a couple of blankets tied on and dragging behind the wagon to disguise their tracks. With Charlie in the middle, between him and Bass, Miles was taking them up the drive towards the house, the morning sun making their shadows look like strange giants on the grassy field. A couple of rabbits darted away as the wagon got close and birds wheeled above their heads, startled into flight. 

There was a sturdy figure waiting for them on the verandah, and even at this distance Charlie could see Aaron’s frown… 

Bass nudged Charlie’s side…‘He looks worried…’

She smiled, although her eyes were sad…’It’s hard to tell really, worried is sort of his permanent expression these days...’

Miles huffed out a breath, ‘He’s a good man, Bass, remember that, ok?’

‘Hey…it’s alright, I’ll be nice to Staypuft, I promise…’

Miles choked off a laugh then turned to Charlie… ‘If your mom’s doing ok, I’d like to show her some of these bottles, she and Aaron might be able to tell us how to get rid of the stuff without infecting ourselves with something…’

Charlie frowned…’should we tell her those guys were going to Willoughby though? She’s bad enough as it is without knowing about that…’

He nodded, ‘you’re probably right…’ He looked over Charlie’s head at Bass…’Rachel doesn’t need to know about you either, Bass’

The other man nodded, ‘I know, Charlie and I’ve already talked about it…’ he pointed over at a spot near his camp, ‘You can drop me off over there, I need to check on Painful and the horses anyway…’

‘Painful?’

Charlie laughed…’that’s his mule, it bit him on the ass…’

‘So he called it Painful…’ Miles mouth curved in a genuine grin…’gotta love mules…’

Bass shrugged, laughing…’hey, she hasn’t done it for two days straight now, I think she’s getting to like me…’

…………………………………….

They dropped Bass off with some of the coffee and drove the wagon round the back of the house, unhitching the horses and tethering them out to graze.

Charlie looked across at Miles as he finished the last of the tethers…his eyes were red-rimmed and he was stiff with exhaustion. ‘You’ve been up most of the night, Miles, why don’t you have a sleep first? I’ll go and fill Aaron in on everything and check on mom…’

Miles nodded, ‘I might just do that, Charlie,’ he lifted the bottle…’Hey, give Aaron one of these, will you?’ he yawned, jaw cracking; ‘he deserves it’.

Charlie patted the bag over her shoulder ‘all taken care of, Miles…’ then she reached around and hugged him, ‘Hey, are we ok?’

He pulled her closer, planting a kiss on the top of her head…’If he hurts you, I’ll have to kill him, just saying…’

She laughed…’If he hurts me I’ll kill him myself…’ she leaned back, looking up at him ‘I’m all grown up, Miles, you don’t have to worry about me…’

He chuckled…’yeah, I know…just…you know… keep the…’

‘Keep the stupid to a minimum…’ she nodded…‘I’ll try, but he’s different, Miles, I don’t think he’s that man anymore, I’m not sure if he ever was, not really…’ Her deep blue eyes held his, ‘he’s saved my life twice already that I know of, I mean, we wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for him, those men back in the barn would have killed all of us…’ She squeezed the lean waist…’And someone or something, whoever or whatever it was, brought him here to us, Miles, when we needed him, that’s got to mean something, doesn’t it?’

Miles sighed, a heavy sound in the morning air, ‘All this spooky crap? It’s really not me, kid, I don’t understand it, but I’m not just worried about you…’ he paused for a minute, ‘Bass is hauling a whole truckload of baggage around of his own, and it’s sent him over the edge before…’

Charlie nodded…’I know, he told me about Shelley and the baby… ‘

Miles looked startled…‘Did he?’

‘Yeah, and that he’s got a grown up son somewhere, he said he’s going to find him, once we sort the Patriots out…’

Something flickered across Miles’ eyes that she couldn’t quite catch, and then he turned round towards the house, pulling her with him. ‘Go check on your mom and Aaron, Charlie, I’ll get a couple of hours in the sack,’ he let go of her as they went up the steps into the house, ‘and maybe we should just tell Aaron about the stuff in the wagon? I don’t like leaving your mom out of things but I really don’t know what seeing it’ll do to her...’

She nodded, ‘I was thinking about that too, I mean she’s already paranoid enough, she keeps talking about some weird government conspiracy…’

He turned to go to the spare room where he’d put his bedroll, then turned back to her, his face solemn... ‘I’m beginning to think she’s right, Charlie. These Patriots? They’re well organised and they’ve got resources that had to have been put together before the blackout.’ He tipped his thumb towards the wagon, ‘that little lot wasn’t cooked up on a backyard barbecue, it was made in a real lab – one that had power, so it’s been stockpiled somewhere till they were ready to use it,’ he lowered his voice…‘and do you know what worries me even more?’ his dark eyes were very serious…’If there’s one place like the Tower, who’s to say there aren’t more? Who knows what else they’ve got hidden away…’

Charlie stared… ’So Bass was right… he said the Patriots were going to be bad, and the bounty hunters he killed back in the mountains talked about sleeper agents too, all over the country, hidden before the blackout.’

Miles nodded… ’Which means we can’t trust anyone, even people we think we know, so we have to be extra careful from now on, Charlie, your mom’s the one they really want, and maybe Aaron too. And as for Willoughby?’ he ran his hand through his hair… ’We’ll have to work something out before we get there’ his lips twisted…’maybe we can kidnap Gene, bring him to us, keep your mom away from town altogether…’ He sighed, taking another pull from the bottle… ‘Oh, and those six guys we killed for the wagon? It was pretty easy right, for you and me?’

Charlie’s nodded slowly…’yeah, they were pushovers…’ she shrugged ‘I didn’t even have to wiggle my ass’

He smiled, or tried to anyway, his face lined with exhaustion…’that’s right…’ he went into the room and started to close the door behind him… ‘Wake me in a couple of hours?’ Then his face reappeared…’and if you go, you know… hunting… again, don’t get all caught up in the moment and forget about us, ok?’

Charlie grinned…‘Ok, Miles…’

Aaron came out into the hall from the kitchen, his voice a harsh whisper…‘Charlie? What the hell’s going on?’

She walked towards him…’where’s my mom?’

‘She’s still asleep’ he chewed his bottom lip, nervous…’Charlie, I saw, you know… him…’

Charlie brushed past him into the kitchen, ‘No you didn’t, Aaron, you saw me and Miles with a wagon and some intel we got from a bunch of travelling Patriots, I’ll show you after we’ve had something to eat…’ She put her bag on the table, ignoring his confusion and started pulling out packages, ‘Look, we’ve got some hard cheese and biscuits, fruit – and coffee.’

‘Real coffee?’ Aaron sucked in a breath and nodded, his eyes full of questions… ‘I guess I could have been too far away to see properly…’ then he picked up the bag of coffee beans, and sniffed it, ‘My God, that smells good…’

Charlie smiled, her dimple showing…’I’ll tell you all about it later, I promise, but look, they had some whisky too,’ she held out the bottle…

His eyes lit up, ’later on is fine, Charlie,’ he reached for the whisky ‘come to papa…’

………………………………………………

Miles stripped off his duster and took a deep pull from his bottle of whiskey, feeling the alcohol burn a searing welcome way down his throat. He put the bottle down, rubbed his hands over his face and sank down onto the bedroll spread out on the wooden floor... 

He lay back and looked up at the cobwebbed ceiling… 

Somehow Bass had found them, found Charlie with the help of some crazy ghost lady and a pack of weird cards, and somehow she had developed…feelings… for him. Miles honestly didn’t know what to do about that. One thing he did know was that if Rachel even suspected that Bass Monroe was here and screwing her daughter, she’d lose whatever was left of her mind…

Having Bass along though meant that maybe, just maybe they’d all make it to Willoughby in one piece. But if Bass and his weird fucking cards were right about the Patriots, then what if they were right about Rachel’s dad? What if he really was working with the Patriots, then they were walking right into a trap…

And then there was Connor. Sometime soon he was going to have to tell Bass about his son, and explain why he and Emma had kept the boy a secret… Shit…

He sat up just enough so he wouldn’t choke on another pull, then put the cap on the bottle and lay back again, closing his eyes, every muscle in his body aching like he’d been rolled on by a mule called Painful…

……………………………………………….

Miles woke up somewhere else… He was wearing his duster and the same old jeans and shirt that he’d gone to sleep in, but he was somewhere else. He looked around; the streets were achingly familiar and completely impossible. It was Philly… but Philly before the bombs had blown it into piles of dust and ash. He looked around, it wasn’t just Philly, he was on the street in front of Otto’s lounge.

He rubbed a booted foot on the worn and crumbling bitumen and it felt real, it was colder here too and almost dark instead of mid morning… He shut his eyes, then opened one, it was all still there… he shut that one and opened the other, ditto, ok, Toto, we are so not in Kansas anymore…

‘Hey, Miles?’

He turned towards the voice, not daring to believe his ears, but his eyes told him the same thing, ‘Nora?’

She walked up to him, all sleek, dangerous curves in a short, tight black dress. Her long luscious legs and beautiful, brown skin a sweet, sweet sight, and as for those wonderful cheekbones and full, lush lips… 

Miles felt his heart break into a million pieces all over again when he remembered her, lying broken and so fucking still in the Tower…

The exotic, slanted, dark eyes in that gorgeous face fixed on him with a puzzled frown creasing her brows…’Where have you been?’ she looked him up and down, ‘you look terrible.’

Some sort of laugh pushed its way out of his chest; although his heart was pounding so hard he was surprised it wasn’t showing on the outside…’Away I guess, you look great…’

She shrugged…’what, this little thing?’ she slid her hands down the tight fabric that hugged her killer body like a dark, silken glove, her nipples budding as he watched… She smiled, her white teeth and the tip of her tongue as she flicked it out over her lower lip drawing his eyes like a magnet…’I bought it with my winnings from last night…’ She came closer, her high heels bringing the top of her head almost up to his nose and her lips within kissing range along with her scent, a warm, tantalizing spicy musk that went straight to his dick… ‘I totally killed ‘em at the tables… are you alright, Miles?’

Was he alright? ‘Yeah…’ he licked his own lips, and found he was still looking at hers…’I’m fine…’ he cleared his throat and looked around, she was alone. ‘Where are you headed?’

She put her arms around his waist, her body flush against him, and damn, it felt so fucking good… 

‘I was coming to meet you of course, like we said’ her eyes were puzzled… ’You look really tired, Miles, are you sure you’re ok?’ She ran a hand up his chest and cupped his cheek, her thumb stroking over the thick stubble, ‘you haven’t shaved, your clothes are a mess’ she sniffed at his shirt… ‘And you really need a bath…’ 

He lifted her chin with his knuckles…’I’ve got an idea…’

She curved her throat into his hand, letting his fingers slide gently down to her shoulder…’what is it?’

He leaned down and kissed her, and the feel of those soft, warm, wonderfully pliant lips under his nearly brought him to his fucking knees, and if this was a dream it was a perfect dream, and he didn’t want to wake up yet… ‘What if we go to your place? I can get cleaned up there…’

She kissed him back, her tongue flicking out, meeting his. ’Ok, I suppose the dress will keep for another night’

He let his fingers drop to the shadowed cleft between her breasts, one finger sliding between the soft mounds…’all I can think about right now is getting you out of the fucking dress…’

Her eyes danced up at him and she licked her lips…

He wound his arm around her waist as they walked through the lamp-lit, elegant streets to her house, and if there were any other people around, he didn’t see them; his eyes and arms were full of the woman walking next to him, her lithe body bumping his, both of them laughing, her heels tapping on the concrete pavement, the curves of her breasts and the shadowy valley between them bouncing a little with every step…

She opened her door and pulled him inside, lighting the lamp on the hall table and leading him upstairs to her room, his eyes following the swell of her hips, the tight globes of her ass swaying in that delicious dress with every upwards step.

His hands strayed to her hips, stroking over the smooth fabric and down, and he heard her breath catch as his fingers slid under the short hem of the dress and under the light fabric of her panties, spreading out over the warm, springy flesh of her ass, feeling the strong muscles bunching and releasing as she climbed… 

He pulled one hand back and undid his fly, feeling his cock spring out, ’God, I’ve missed you, Nora…’

She laughed, a low, sweet sound that rippled through his heart, ’I missed you too, Miles.’ She turned that laughing face to him…’though it’s only been four days,’

Four days, a lifetime… He laughed back, although it caught on the lump in his throat…‘Seems longer than that.’

She reached the top of the stairs and turned towards him, setting the lamp on a small table, and suddenly clothes were everywhere around them. The dress somehow came off over her head, and he threw it over the rail while she was pulling at his jacket sleeves, her bra went the same way… 

Then she saw his cock, rising like a search light out of his pants. She had his pants button undone and her lips around his hard length before he could finish kicking off his boots and he staggered, one hand on the landing rail, the other holding her head so she didn’t lose her grip on him, ’Shit, Nora…’ then his words dried up…

She looked up at him, dark eyes wicked as she licked and sucked; her lips wrapped around him and her tongue and hot wet mouth doing magical, amazing things to his cock, her hair falling in long, dark waves around her shoulders, her breasts beautiful with the dusky nipples pebbled… She looked so fucking amazing he almost lost his load then and there… Instead he somehow found the strength to pull her up and off his dick... ‘Bedroom, now…’ 

She licked her lips and swayed away from him, still in those high heels, her eyes laughing at him, her hands pulling him towards her room ‘Come on, Miles, hurry…’

He stumbled over his boots, yanking them off and tossing them somewhere… his pants following them, although he kept enough presence of mind to keep hold of his swords and his gun, laying them on her dresser before getting rid of the rest of his clothes, lifting her in his arms and tossing her onto the bed…

Then he stood there for a moment, just looking at her as she lay there, smiling back at him, her head propped on one hand, her slim body flowing in graceful, lovely curves down the bed… and then he was next to her, his hands roaming over her smooth skin, reaching down to pull one graceful leg over his shoulder so he could dive in, totally balls deep into her tight, hot wetness… her gasps and moans sounding like sweet music in his ears, and the sound of his name on her lips, and the feel of her around him as his cock slid in and out of her like all the good things he’d forgotten existed…

And for a long time, all he knew was her, her arms around him, her feet thudding on his back as he plumbed her, pushing her further into the soft, yielding mattress with every thrust, her lips on his, their sweat mingling and rising like steam into the cool air of the room, their bodies moving together faster, harder, more urgently as they reached for the moon and stars…

And afterwards, he held her as she fell asleep, his hand stroking her hair, her breath tickling the little hairs on his chest, her long, slim legs tangled in his and her face looking so, so beautiful…

………………………………….

Miles woke to find himself alone on the bedroll in the bedroom of the safe house with tears running down his cheeks and dust on his lips, with Philly, and Nora so fucking far, far away… 

He sat up, reaching for the whiskey bottle, but before he could get hold of it, he saw a woman sitting on the old chair in the corner of the room, and he realized suddenly that could see straight through her to the dirt streaked wall behind.

She smiled, a gentle smile, with more than a trace of sadness in it…’Hello, Miles, my name’s Rose, and your Nora was a very special woman, I think…’

……………………………………

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AN: Hi and thanks for reading, I hope you liked this – it’s sort of leading me in a few unexpected directions, including Miles having a dream of his own… I think he genuinely cared for Nora and If I were Rose, and had the power to, I’d want to give him something to remember her by… anyway, hope to see you at the next chapter – there’ll be more of Bass and Charlie there, just because… cheers, Magpie


	9. On the road again...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author’s note:   
> Hi there and thanks so much for having a look at this, and for enjoying it so far. Sorry about the big gap in updates – I had a bit of a unwell spell. Anyway, I tried to make up for it by giving you lots to read lol! ☺ The story is based on prompts from the Orgy Armada’s Revolution, The Second Coming. I don’t own any part of Revolution and am writing this purely for love of the show and its characters.

Aaron wrapped his hand in a strip of cloth and carefully lifted one of the little bottles out of its crate, peering at the label…’This one’s Typhus…’ he put the bottle back and reached across to the other open crate, picking up another, ‘and this…’ he frowned ’this is Smallpox, although I’m pretty sure they’re both manufactured variants,’ he checked another box, ’Sodium Pentathol, Anthrax…’ and another, full of sealed metal canisters ‘and here we have sarin gas, oh and mustard gas…’ Then he turned to Charlie, face grim…‘Who the hell are these people?’

She shrugged…’They’re the enemy, Aaron…’ 

Aaron carefully replaced the lids on each crate ‘There are like, three of us? Four if we count you know who and five if we count your mom’ he turned to her…’Charlie, what hope do we possibly have against people who’ve got access to stuff like this?’

Charlie glanced up at her mom…

Rachel was sitting in an old rocker on the deck by the open back door; hands in her lap, eyes glassy and looking vaguely at a spot somewhere to the left of the wagon. Her lips were moving as she talked to herself… 

Charlie sighed…‘Probably none at all’ she turned back to Aaron who was looking a whole lot more worried than usual, if that was even possible, ‘but I guess we’ll just keep on fighting anyway, isn’t that what we do?’ She leaned on the wagon tailgate, nodding at the crates inside… So how do get rid of this stuff?’

Aaron chewed his lip, frowning…’The best way would be incineration – or sodium hydroxide and water maybe…’ he checked the rest of the wagon, ‘which they haven’t been kind enough to provide…’

Miles appeared at the back door, his face pale and set, buckling his sword belt as he spoke… ‘Charlie? Aaron? Grab your crap while I hitch up the horses, we gotta go, now…’ He glanced down at Rachel then back to Charlie as he hurried down the steps and strode towards them. ‘I’ll take Aaron and your mom on the wagon and go cross country away from the road and you scout on ahead with you know who, ok?’ 

Charlie was already jogging towards the house, ‘what is it, Miles? What’s happened?’

He took her arm as she went past; leaning close to her ear…’I just had a chat with Rose, Charlie’ 

‘Rose? The gh…. you mean you actually saw Rose?’ Charlie’s eyes widened…

He nodded, his dark eyes hooded, ‘yeah…’

‘Who’s Rose?’ Aaron had come up behind Charlie and was staring at Miles…

He shook his head, eyes slanting quickly to Rachel then back…. ‘Later, Aaron, let’s just get going, ok? I want to get some hours under our belts before dark…’ he turned back to Charlie… ’According to our little helper there’s a whole bunch of Patriots headed this way from the next town wondering why their poison train didn’t make the rendezvous…’ 

Charlie looked at him…’We can’t let them get it, Miles…’ 

He nodded again, ‘I know…’

She squeezed his arm and turned to go…

‘Charlie?’ 

She looked back ‘Yeah?’

He tipped his head towards the river where Bass was camped, ‘see if you know who’s got a spare map?’

She nodded ‘Ok…’

…………………………………….

Charlie packed her mom’s things first, sliding the bag across the floor towards Aaron as he gathered his own stuff...

He grabbed it, shoving it next to his…’Charlie, what’s going on? Who’s Rose?’

She had a quick look to see that her mom was still sitting outside…’Rose is the one who did all the disappearing stuff, and who brought Bass to the barn that night…’ 

Aaron looked around hopefully, ’So is she here now?’

Charlie shrugged, ‘I don’t know, Bass and Miles are the only one’s who’ve seen her so far…’

His face fell…

She grinned, he looked so disappointed…’She’s a ghost so I guess she does whatever she likes, we’re just lucky that she likes us…’ she slung her bow strap over one shoulder…’she told Bass that what happened at the tower that night – when all the lightening happened? It did something, made her stronger?’

His eyes widened ‘that’s crazy, it was electrical energy, how could that effect ghosts?’ 

‘Well apparently it did, and it’s no crazier than those dancing cicadas we saw…’ She found one of her mom’s socks and stuffed it into the bag ‘or the weird crows…’

‘Yes it is’ Aaron did up the straps on his pack with a snick of metal on leather…’It’s a whole other level of crazy. You’re talking about an electrified ghost that can transport people through space and make groups of people share dreams…’ he shook his head… ‘It’s like we’ve fallen into an episode of the X Files…’

‘The what?’ Charlie had another look around the room in case they’d missed anything else…’Don’t worry about it Aaron; Rose said most of it was in our collective unconscious, although that doesn’t really explain what happened in the barn’ she paused, an eyebrow lifting ‘but the main thing is that she seems to be on our side…’

Aaron shook his head then loaded himself up and started for the door, ’I’m a scientist, Charlie, and none of this makes any logical sense…’

Charlie lifted her pack, smiling… ’Sometimes things don’t have to make any sense, Aaron, they just are…’ then she tightened her scabbard thigh strap, slung her bedroll over her shoulder and followed him out…

……………………………………. 

She wasn’t surprised to find Bass already packed and ready to go, both horses saddled and Painful loaded up…

‘You too?’ 

He nodded, holding his hands out for her pack and bedroll, ‘Yeah, Rosie was pretty insistent on us heading out fast.’ He frowned a little as he stowed Charlie’s gear in the mule’s panniers, ‘I’m no expert on ghosts, but she seems to be getting stronger since we joined up with you and the others, not weaker like she thought; not that I’m complaining.’ He handed her the reins of the chestnut. ‘Oh, Stony’s a good ride but keep him away from low branches’ he grinned, his teeth very white ‘I think he’s been taking lessons from Painful in annoying habits.’

She took the reins ‘I’m guessing Stony’s named after someone?’

He chuckled this time, his eyes glinting blue in the sun…’yep’

‘So what’s the black one’s name?’

‘Blackie…’

Charlie laughed out loud, ‘Really?’’ then she reached up and he met her halfway in a kiss that burned and rippled its way down her spine and had them both panting with need... She let go reluctantly, sliding a hand down the firm chest and hooking a finger behind the thick leather belt around his hips, the warm, firm flesh of his belly so tempting… ‘Can’t wait till we can finish this…’

He laughed softly…’tonight?’

‘Oh Yeah…’ She slid her fingers out with a sigh then mounted up, adjusting the stirrups and getting the feel of the big, rangy horse. ‘Oh, Aaron says we need to find somewhere to incinerate the stuff in the wagon and Miles wants to know if you’ve got a spare map…’

He licked his lips, tasting her there and nodded again, pulling a folded piece of paper out of his pack and handing it up to her…’I figured that’s what we’d be doing so I marked out a route. If we head down to Pueblo, there’s a steelworks museum there and it still had a working furnace before the blackout. I reckon it’s our best shot…’ He shrugged… ‘It’ll take us about three days if everything goes ok…’

Charlie put the map in her jeans pocket and slanted a heated look down at him…’that’s two nights…’

He grinned, stroking one hand up her leg to her hip, his thumb stroking over the thin denim covering her pussy… ‘Yeah’

Her tongue flickered out over her lips and the muscles of her thighs tensed as her clit pulsed… ‘How worried are you, about the Patriots I mean?’

He thought for a moment, his hand warm on her leg…’They might not be expecting us to go the way we’re going so we could be lucky’ he shrugged, ’Rose seemed worried though, she didn’t bother with the cards this time, she came herself…’

‘We’re putting a lot of trust in a ghost, Bass’

‘She’s given us no reason not to trust her, Charlie,’ he ran his hand down and checked the girth again…’but then I don’t know much about ghosts and what’s important to them, so I guess we shouldn’t take her for granted’ he stepped back, giving her room to move…’We’ll be going past Ludlow, it’s supposed to be haunted, it’ll be interesting to see what Rose makes of it…’ 

Charlie shivered…’I’m not sure I want to come across any more ghosts, Bass; what if the lightening woke them up too?’ She turned the chestnut back to the house, ‘I’ll take this on up to Miles then come back, ok?’

Bass mounted up, his eyes glinting blue…’I’ll wait for you upriver...’

‘I won’t be long,’ she blew him a kiss over her shoulder.

………………………………….

The road – or track – that Bass had marked had taken them deep into the forested hills heading down the map towards Ludlow. It was quiet and beautiful although to Aaron it just looked like more places for things to hide in… He concentrated on keeping Rachel upright; she was mumbling to herself again, something about Danny and the nanotech, about wanting to take something back…

They’d just turned round a blind corner when Miles pulled the horses up with a clatter of stones and dust, his face set… ‘You have got to be fucking kidding me…’ 

There was a tree down across the road just a little way ahead, blocking the way, no room to get the wagon around it… 

Miles wrapped the reins around the stake in front of the bench seat and got down, heading over to have a look. ‘You want to see if they’ve got anything useful in that toolbox, Aaron?’ 

Aaron nodded, climbed over the seat in the wagon tray and pulled the box out from under the seat so he could open it. Inside was a selection of various tools including a heavy duty saw and a couple of axes, he grabbed those and a length of rope and was just about to take them over to Miles when he saw a small, padlocked strongbox in a hollow that had been hidden under the bigger toolbox. He pulled it out for later, anything the Patriots considered important enough to hide was something they probably needed to see… 

It took them almost half an hour but by the time Charlie turned up, between them he and Miles had cleared enough branches to get the wagon past…

Miles wiped his hands on his pants and started back to the wagon, ‘glad to see you, kiddo…’ He looked out into the trees and saw Bass, their eyes locking for a long moment and he grinned a little at the relief in those blue eyes; the moron had actually been worried…

Charlie swung down off her horse, ’we wondered what was taking you guys so long…’ she wrapped the reins round a low branch and hurried over to the wagon.

Rachel looked down at her, her eyes clear for once… ‘Charlie, hi… Where’s your brother?’ then her face fell and she looked away, eyes unfocused again, her mouth working…

Charlie sighed…’Hi mom…’

Aaron took a long swig from his water bottle and took his axe and saw back to the toolbox, collecting the small box while he was there and bringing it round to show the others… ‘Hey guys? I found this hidden in the back...’

Miles took one look and reached for a crow bar and a wrench… ‘Hold it still, Aaron’ He levered the padlock open and lifted the lid of the box…

Aaron took a sharp breath in and nearly dropped the whole thing when he saw what was inside…

Charlie’s mouth dropped open…

Miles choked off a laugh… ’No wonder the Patriots were worried about their wagon’

Two nanotech pendants lay cushioned in pre-blackout foam rubber inside the box, their curved metallic surfaces gleaming dully in the afternoon light…

…………………………………………..

Just as it was getting dark they reached the first of the stops Bass had marked on the map, a cluster of five log cabins built around a large central grassy island and set back off the road above a small lake. A faded sign at the turnoff announced ‘Crystal Lake cabins.’ 

The cabins had been hunting and fishing lodges before the blackout and didn’t appear to have been occupied since although there were signs that people and other things had been through the place. Anything useful and portable had long since been taken or had decayed but there were still some basic usable furnishings including beds and chairs under the rubble of scattered and torn paper and fabric, burst cushions and general, water and weather damaged mess… 

Aaron opened the fridge in the kitchen of one of the cabins. As well as assorted mounds of unidentifiable sludge, there were still a half dozen cans of beer sitting on a shelf in the door. He pulled one out with a finger and it fell to the floor with a clatter, empty and hollow, the base disintegrating into dust. He stood for a long moment, just looking at it, then sighed and closed the door…

‘Aaron?’

He turned to see Charlie at the door leaning on the frame, a smile curving her full lips and her dimple twinkling. She looked good, healthy, her eyes bright, energy crackling and for a moment he envied her youth, her courage, her love of life in spite of everything, when all he felt was despair…

‘Are you coming? Food’s ready’ 

He felt his mouth water despite his mood and he nodded, ‘yeah, thanks Charlie…’

The smile widened into admiration, ‘your bread smells amazing, Aaron’

He walked over to join her and found a smile somewhere; it was good to see her enjoying something… ’I hope it tastes as good as it smells, Charlie…’

She slipped an arm through his and walked with him towards the campfire where Miles and Rachel were already eating…’I know it will, because you made it,’ she sighed, ‘and there’s enough flour for tomorrow, and the day after that…’ 

Aaron suddenly couldn’t speak; he found it hard to believe in tomorrow anymore, dealing with today was enough, but he was glad that Charlie could… He blinked away the stupid tears that filled his eyes, chewed his lip and kept walking, glad of her arm in his too…

……………………………………….

Bass had taken first watch and was stationed up by the turnoff to the cabins. Aaron and Miles were sitting on a couple of camp chairs on the back porch of the cabin they’d chosen as a base watching the horses grazing on the long grass in front of the cabins and working their way through one of the Patriot bottles of whiskey. 

The subject of where Charlie was going to sleep hadn’t been raised by anyone although she’d made a show of putting her things in the cabin furthest away from the others and closest to where Bass had set up camp nearer the lake. 

Miles had decided to let things take whatever course they were going to there, he figured Charlie deserved whatever happiness she could find after everything that had happened, and Bass seemed saner and happier than he could remember him being for years, literally. He sighed, lifting the bottle to his lips, Rose had given him some time back with Nora and he still ached with the memory of it, of her alive and so, so vibrant in his arms, her lips on his, her hair sliding soft across his skin... That memory had softened his last sight of her in the Tower, and he was grateful for that, and if Rose had been able to give Bass some peace and Charlie some happiness, then he wasn’t going to spoil it for them… 

He just had to keep any suggestion of it from Rachel.

Aaron sighed and looked at the frustratingly unresponsive pendants sitting in the palm of his hand…’What I wouldn’t give for a hot shower, a bug light and a cold drink right now…’

Miles passed him the whiskey, ‘give it a rest, Aaron.’ He glanced inside at Charlie who was getting her mom settled onto the surprisingly clean mattress in the bedroom. The light of the full moon flooding in through the windows showed her stroking her mom’s hair to help her sleep, her movements slow and reassuring, her voice low and calm. He felt a sudden surge of affection for her, a protectiveness that shook him with its strength… 

Aaron took a long slug from the bottle, ’can’t help it, Miles…’ he sighed…’I’ve tried everything I can think of and nothing works, Rachel’s the only one here who knows how to turn the damn things on and you won’t let me ask her…’ 

Miles took the bottle back. ‘You’re as worried as I am about Rachel seeing them, Aaron, and you know it… In fact I’m not sure it’s a good idea to turn them on anyway’ he had another pull, enjoying the burn as the whisky went down, ‘at least not until we work out what we’re gonna to do with them. Besides, lights suddenly going on would be as good as putting up a ‘here we are’ signpost for the Patriots’ He held out a hand, ‘come on, hand ‘em over; you’re on next watch and I need you paying attention, not playing with those things’

Aaron sighed heavily, ‘Ok…’ and let the chains slip slowly through his fingers into Miles’ hand… Then he tipped his head towards the kitchen. ‘Do you think she’s told him yet? About the pendants?’

Miles shook his head…’Nah…’ then he shrugged…’probably’

…………………………………….

Charlie grabbed another chunk of bread and some of the roasted rabbit left over from dinner and headed up to join Bass for the end of his watch. There was plenty of flour left and the Patriots had donated a jar of what turned out to be sourdough starter and a bag of salt – so she was looking forward to more… 

He was leaning against a tree and turned when he heard her coming, the moonlight outlining him in silver, the handsome face, broad shoulders, slim legs and easy grace catching at her breath… 

He put his rifle carefully against the tree and came to meet her, his smile wide…’I’m glad you came’

‘Thought you might be hungry again,’ she broke the bread in half and gave it to him along with half of the rabbit. 

‘Thanks, Charlie...’ He wrapped the bread around the meat and took a bite….’Staypuft is a better cook than I thought, this is even better the second time around.’ 

They ate, the forest around them full of the sounds of night-time creatures… rabbits, insects, birds moving on their roosts, deer grunting as they grazed. It was peaceful and beautiful, with the mountains rising huge and awesome in the distance behind them outlined by the moon like a primeval landscape…

Bass finished first and brushed his hands down over his pants…’Has he worked out how to turn the pendants on yet?’

She shook her head, ‘No…’ 

‘We need to know, Charlie,’ he went to pick his gun up again, then hesitated, ‘Look, I know I went a bit crazy about those things before the Tower, and I’m sorry about that, but things are different now.’ He stood there, his eyes intense… ‘You’ve made things different, Charlie, and whatever we decide to do we work it out together, ok? You, me, Miles and Staypuft – and your mom too, I guess, when she’s better.’ His lips curved a little…’and I’m sure she will get better, Charlie, your mom’s one of the strongest people I know…’ he shrugged ‘she’s also one of the most stubborn, pig headed people I know too, but that’s beside the point...’

She looked at him, her eyes full of…something; one eyebrow lifting just a little as he said the last thing…

He swallowed, ’We need all the help we can get to even have a hope of winning against these guys and even without amplifiers, these things can give us access to computers, weapons…’ He took a deep breath. ‘Besides, we’ll need them to power up the furnace in Pueblo, an ordinary fire isn’t going to be hot enough to destroy that stuff.’

Charlie nodded, she wanted to believe him, ached to believe him, hoped so much that he was telling the truth, and a big part of her did believe him, did trust him or she wouldn’t have told him…so, ok… ’I know, Aaron keeps trying but nothing’s worked so far.’ 

‘I have an idea’ he came a little closer…’I’m not sure you’ll like it but hear me out, ok?’

She nodded again, ‘what is it?’

He took a deep breath…’we can’t show them to your mom, right? I think we all know what that’d do to her right now…’

Wasn’t that the truth, Charlie could picture her mom completely losing it…‘Go on’ 

‘We could ask Rose to try and see how to do it in Rachel’s mind’

She looked at him, ‘Do you think she could do that?’

He shrugged, ‘I don’t know, but we can ask her…’ 

Charlie thought about it, her mom was already in a bad place and she didn’t want to make things worse, but Bass was right, they needed to find a way to destroy the stuff in the wagon as soon as possible. She shivered; her blood ran cold when she thought of what the Patriots could do to so many people if they got their hands on it again and it wasn’t as though they could just bury the stuff or chuck it in the lake, it was deadly… She took a deep breath, then let it out... ‘Ok, lets ask her…’ 

Bass let out a long breath too…’Good, that’s good…’

Charlie looked around; everything looked exactly the same, she’d somehow expected…something…’so what do we do next? How do we ask her?’

They both jumped at the sound of footsteps coming up behind them, and Bass had his rifle in his hands and pointed at the sound so fast that Charlie really couldn’t say how he did it…

Aaron’s face appeared between two trees as he pushed branches aside to fit through, his eyes opening wide in alarm as he saw the gun barrel pointing at him… ’Hey Monroe, it’s me, it‘s my turn on watch…’ 

Bass lowered the gun, ‘Staypuft, hi…’ 

Charlie grinned, stepping between them…’I thought it was almost time for changeover…’ 

Aaron came towards them, puffing just a little; one of the camp chairs folded over his shoulder…’sorry if I interrupted anything’ he put the chair down and held out a bottle – there was still about a third of the whisky left in the bottom…’here, we saved you some’

Bass grinned, taking the bottle… ’Thanks, and you didn’t, interrupt I mean…’ He held the rifle out, barrel up, ‘do you want this?’

Aaron sort of smiled, then shook his head, ‘No thanks,’ he patted his right hip and a dark shape there… ‘Miles gave me his pistol...’ he shrugged, ‘although what he expects me to do with it I don’t know…’

Charlie patted his arm, ‘just point it at something and pull the trigger, we’ll hear you and come running, ok?’

‘That’s what Miles said,’ Aaron leaned over to set the chair up, ‘look, you dropped one of your cards, Monroe.’

Bass looked down, surprised, ‘I didn’t bring them with me.’

Charlie glanced up at him then down at the ground… Aaron was right; it was definitely one of the Tarot cards. She bent down and picked it up. It showed a beautiful blond woman, dressed in gorgeous robes, sitting on a throne. ‘It’s called the Empress, but it looks a whole lot like my mom,’ she showed the others, ’I think Rose got the message…’

Aaron looked confused…’what message?’

…………………………………………..

Charlie opened the door to her little cabin, ‘come in, Bass’ The moonlight was still bright enough to see – even inside, but she pulled a small lamp out of her pack anyway.

Bass followed her inside, turning the lock as he shut the door and looking around. It reminded him a little of his cabin at the motel although that hadn’t been plundered of nearly everything useable… A central all- purpose kitchen/diner/lounge room with a functional table and a sitting area with a dusty tv hanging on the wall and a couple of small, rickety couches led into a short hall with two bedrooms and a bathroom leading off it. A sliding glass door – surprisingly intact, although the vertical blinds had perished and lay in a dusty pile on the floor, led onto a small deck which overlooked the lake, a bright shimmering oval of moonlit water off in the distance. He leaned the rifle against the door and put his pack on the floor near the table, ‘very nice.’

She flourished an arm towards the hall, ’and there’s a real bed.’ She slanted a grin up at him; her eyes hot…‘so did you bring them?’

He chuckled, reaching down and pulling a shining white mass out of his pack, ’oh yeah...’ 

………………………………………

Charlie looked at the bed; the white satin sheets hid a multitude of sins but getting rid of the mattress, laying their bedrolls over the base and putting the sheets over that had worked and the bed almost looked like the one from their dream, if you squinted… The lamp was pretty too; it was turned way down low and she’d blacked out the small window with an old piece of blanket so it was as safe as she could make it. 

She kicked her boots off and put them by the chair where she’d hung her jacket, her belts were next, her knives placed carefully on the chair where she could reach them if she needed to. Her jeans followed, folded over the back of the chair with her tank and bra over them. She stood there in her panties; her hair was still wet and in a knot on her head after their swim in the lake, and she felt clean for the first time in a while… She stretched, her body remembering hard muscled flesh sliding over hers in the water, his kisses hot on water cooled skin, his cock, sliding into her warmth like a welcome brand, the water slapping and bubbling between them as they moved, it had felt so…incredibly...good…

Bass came in, his hair curling wildly as it dried, the bottle of whisky and a couple of small glasses in his hand… He put them on the small dresser against the wall, his reflection in the foxed and scratched mirror above it angular and mysterious in the lamplight, his eyes a deep and bottomless blue. He poured them both a drink and saluted her in the mirror, ‘it looks great, Charlie,’ he studied her reflection, ‘and so do you…’

She let her hair down and came up behind him, sliding her arms around his waist, eyes darting to the glass of whisky on the dresser, her mouth full and soft; her reflection a shadowy presence behind him and her breasts soft cushions against his back… ‘Yeah, It was nice of Miles and Aaron to leave us some of that too…’

He laughed…’it was probably Aaron, Miles wouldn’t have thought about it…’

Charlie leaned in close, resting her head against the warmth of his back, breathing in the spicy scent of male sweat and leather with just a trace of horse on his clothes, her arms tight around the slim waist, hands sliding up to the wide chest, her fingers playing with the tiny nubs of his nipples under the thin fabric of his shirt…’True…’

He sighed, taking her hands in his and meeting her eyes in the mirror when she leaned back and looked over his shoulder… ‘I want to thank you, Charlie…’

‘For what?’ Her fingers laced through his, her eyes smoky blue and lazily smiling.

‘For telling me about the pendants, for trusting me.’

The eyes grew serious, meeting his with an intensity that went through him like a shaft of light… ‘I had to think about it because I wanted so much to believe you, but then I realized that somewhere along the way I’d come to trust you and that it was ok to tell you…’

His heart was pounding so hard he thought he could hear it. He moved one of her hands over it, ‘do you feel that?’

She nodded, her eyes still fixed on his…

‘That’s what you do to me, Charlie; you make me feel alive; you make me want to be the best I can be.’

Her arms tightened around him, holding him close, then her hands slid over his chest as she stepped back, her dimple flashing in the mirror, her body beautiful in the light of the lamp... ‘Hey, I’m on last watch and we’re running out of night.’

He turned round, his eyes focused on her, the heat in them flashing straight to her belly…‘I think about you all the time,’ he moved closer, his hands framing her hips, running up her sides, his fingers stroking up over her ribs to her breasts, thumbs flicking the tender peaks until they tightened, making her gasp, ‘I think about doing this… and this....’ He leaned down and took first one nipple in his mouth and then the other, sucking and licking until she hung in his arms, her head tipped back and her eyes half closed…

She laughed, her hands reaching up to slip his shirt off his shoulders…’I think about you too, Miles rolls his eyes every time he sees me…’ 

Bass chuckled…’I think he’s taking it pretty well, actually…’ He lifted her and placed her on the bed, then pulled his shirt off, stripped out of his jeans and walked over to get their drinks….

She watched him, loving the curve of his ass, the muscles of his back and legs, the slim waist widening into a broad, defined chest, all golden in the lamplight…‘Turn the lamp off, Bass?’ Charlie reached up and grabbed the edge of the blanket she’d hung over the window…

He nodded, and as he turned the lamp off, the moonlight flooded in through the window, and suddenly everything was outlined in silver, not gold as she let the moon in…

She sat up and took the glass he held out to her, tossing it back and letting the whiskey burn and sizzle it’s way down her throat. Then she gave the empty glass back and lay back against her improvised pillow, her arms stretched above her head and one knee bent, the curls between her legs glimmering in the moonlight with their own shine as well as her juices making them wet…her body shining softly against the white satin sheets…

He sat on the edge of the bed, his weight rolling her a little towards him, then ran a hand down the contours of her body, his fingers lingering on curves and shadows...

She shivered, a delicious shudder running through from her head to her toes… ‘I wish we could stay just like this,’ she lifted a hand and cupped his cheek, the soft bristles of his scruff tickling her palm…

He moved his lips so that he could kiss her palm. ‘Me too,’ then he slid down beside her, one arm stretched above their heads, his chest and one small nipple in kissing distance, his hard, ready cock falling against her thigh, the tip shiny with pre-cum… 

She reached down and stroked it, her fingers sliding the soft skin over the hard flesh beneath, her hand circling the thick shaft, moving gently up and down… She let her leg fall, opening her pussy to his hand, smiling as he cupped her, his fingers sliding through her folds, slipping into her wet core like they were coming home. She sighed and arched her back as he slid two then three fingers into her, stretching her out although not as much as his cock did…

He leaned over and kissed her, his lips soft and hard at the same time, his scruff teasing the sensitive skin around her lips…then he reached down, slipped his hand under her knee and pulled her onto him, sliding her over until she was riding him, going slow, up and down over his cock as his hips flexed under her, letting her set the pace in a sweet, rocking ride that had them panting, sweating, gasping, skin sliding over skin, sliding over satin…

Charlie moved her hands to his chest, her fingers denting the flesh, his hands on her hips, her knees bent along his sides, her feet tucked under his knees to give her extra leverage as she increased the speed, moving to a hard, grinding gallop… her heart pounding, her blood racing and her eyes blazing with his as they raced together to somewhere, someplace where nothing mattered but this… 

Bass suddenly stiffened, holding himself very still, holding her still too… his breath rasping in his throat as he held himself back… ‘Charlie…’

Charlie groaned…’shit….’ Then she lifted herself off him, slid down and took him in her mouth, her lips open wide to take him in, her eyes gleaming up at him as she ran her tongue over his tip, the heat of her mouth making him suck in a breath, his body tense with anticipation… She worked him up and down, her teeth grazing him so, so gently, the fingers of one hand stroking the soft, tight globes of his balls, her other hand busy between her own legs, rubbing her clit, bringing herself closer as she brought him…

Bass grabbed at handfuls of the slippery sheets, helpless as her lips and tongue tipped him over the edge and his seed burst in hot, salty sweet waves into her throat…

She laughed around his cock as she swallowed him down, her fingers sliding over her clit and inside, finding her sweet spot, her walls like elastic, gripping her fingers as she found her own release… 

Then, when she could move, she slid up his body, her lips coming to rest on his, their tastes mingling in her mouth, his lips and his come, salty sweet…and whisky…

He wrapped his arms round her and squeezed her tight until she gasped, laughing, and she fell asleep with him as her cushion, her head on his shoulder, his hands on her skin, his lips on her cheek…

………………………………………..

There was someone banging at the door…

Charlie woke to the noise of it, it was still dark outside, the moon glaring in through the window...‘What is it?’

Bass was already out of bed and almost into his jeans…’It’s Miles, Charlie, I’ll see what he wants…’

She rolled out too and reached for her clothes, ‘wait for me, I’m coming.’

They reached the door almost at the same time, Charlie just getting in front of Bass to open it…

Miles was standing outside, a tall, dark shape in the moonlight…’Come on out here. You guys need to see this’ then he turned away without another word, heading towards the back of the biggest cabin…

………………………………………….

The three of them stood looking down at the grassy slope behind the cabin where four bodies lay scattered in various versions of dead.

‘Shit…’ Bass ran a hand through his hair, ‘what do you think, Miles, two days maybe?’

Miles poked at an arm on one of the bodies with the toe of his boot, it moved with a limp, flaccid, thump and there was an alarmed rustle as something scuttled away in the dark… ‘Yeah, maybe less, they’ve all been shot, heavy gauge ammunition…’ He sucked in a breath and turned to face them… ’We need to leave before their friends turn up looking for these guys’

Charlie looked at the bodies, grey pants, grey dusters, Stetson hats. ‘So who are they? And why are you so worried?’

Miles tipped his head back towards the bodies, ‘those are Texas rangers, Charlie, and the Sovereign Nation of Texas doesn’t take at all kindly to people shooting them.’

Bass choked off a laugh…’and that’s the understatement of the century, they’ll have half their army heading this way looking for these guys, and what’s the betting someone’ll try to pin it on us…’

‘I thought you said the Patriots wouldn’t expect us to come this way,’ Charlie glared at Bass…

He shrugged, ‘They won’t, but they know we’re in the general vicinity, so they’ll find a way to blame us, or me anyway, I mean they blamed me for the bombs didn’t they?’

Miles lifted a hand, ‘alright, alright you two…’ his tongue flicked out over his bottom lip ‘We’ve got the Patriots looking everywhere for us, and Texas probably heading this way too, and we can’t let either of them have that wagon. We need to get it out of here and to that incinerator as fast as we can…’ He turned and headed back up the slope, ‘so pack your crap, we head out at first light…’

…………………………………………

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AN: Hi and thanks for reading, another longish one but lots to tell!! This story has totally taken me by the arm and is leading me off somewhere I didn’t quite expect lol!! I hope you don’t mind though, more soon…
> 
> Cheers, Magpie


	10. Devil take it

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author’s note:  
> Hi there and thanks so much for having a look at this, and for sticking with me… ☺ The story is based on prompts from the Orgy Armada’s Revolution, The Second Coming. I don’t own any part of Revolution and am writing this purely for love of the show and its characters.

Aaron was in Sylvania Estates, in front of Ben and Maggie’s house. The sky was blue, the town buildings were well cared for and the flourishing gardens looked lush and beautiful in the bright sunshine of a summer’s day; it looked like home…like home should still be. People he knew were walking around, doing what people did in a small rural, post blackout town; shopping at the town markets further down the road, chatting, tending the gardens and the animals, smiling, picking their noses… A crowd of dusty, carefree kids were playing tag around the wrecks on what used to be a car park, their names sounding in his head like the school roll call, Jimmy Potts, little Sara Callaghan, Parker Freeman, Franklin Marsh, Carey Locke, Josh Lucas and his twin sister Daisy, shit, even his little troop of book hating delinquents looked good right now...

Maggie was watering the herbs in her reclaimed car garden out the front of the house; the long curling strands of her silver gold hair pulled back into a rough knot at the back of her head. She looked beautiful too…

He went up to her, his heart pounding… ‘Maggie?’

She looked around, startled, but her eyes went straight through him, as though he wasn’t there… then she frowned a little, shrugged and went back to her work.

Aaron stepped back, his hands shaking, ok; it really was a dream then, and it had to be Rose who was doing it, because he suddenly knew why he was here; Ben, Ben had had a pendant, Ben knew how to turn them on because he’d helped invent them… Aaron hurried up to the house, the grass soft under his feet, the air fragrant with achingly familiar flowers, grasses, and the underlying tang of sweaty human and animal dung. The front door of the house was standing open, God; he’d forgotten what that was like, to live somewhere you could leave the door open… He went in, looking for Ben, but afraid to see him too, because Ben was dead, like so many of those people outside were dead, going to be dead, killed by Tom Neville and the militia… 

He looked around, but there was no sign of anyone on the first floor… Then he heard a tiny sound from the bottom of the stairs to the basement, a sound that he hadn’t heard for a long, long time, that played like music in his ears. Someone was using a keyboard… 

He started down the stairs…

The sound came from a small alcove at the back of the basement, a tall wooden screen shielding it from view. Ben Matheson was sitting at a desk facing the stairs, an oil lamp turned to low on the table next to him and the light of a monitor screen casting a cool grey light on his face. His eyes were calm in the handsome face; cool, focused on whatever he was doing… 

Aaron went closer; there were loose pages of notes and schematics stacked neatly on the desk top next to the keyboard. They looked similar to stuff he’d seen in the tower and in articles on developments in nanotech he’d read while he was at MIT - similar but not the same, and he wondered what had become of Ben’s notes, what else he’d been working on, what had been left behind... Aaron hadn’t given it a thought at the time, everything had happened so fast the day that Tom Neville arrived, the day that Ben died and their calm, peaceful, bucolic life came to a crashing, bloody end...

Then Ben looked up, startled, as upstairs a door banged.

’Dad? Where are you?’ it was a young man’s voice, a light baritone, upstairs but coming closer… ‘Charlie bagged a deer and we could do with some extra muscles…’

Aaron had to bite his tongue to stop himself crying out; Danny, it was Danny, alive… Then he saw what Ben was holding and he moved as close as he dared, so he could see...

Ben held the pendant cradled in one hand, the tip of his thumb pressing against part of the bottom edge, the fleshy pad winking as he put a tiny bit of pressure from one side to the other… 

Then there was a small sound, like the ping of an email coming through and the monitor screen shrank into blank darkness. Ben stood up, slipped the chain of the pendant round his neck, hiding it under his collar, flung a dust cover over the computer, quickly slid the papers together and put them in a drawer of the desk, locking it with a small key from a ring on his belt. Then he came, walking quickly towards the stairs, his arm moving through Aaron’s side with a strange, cool, dragging sensation… ‘I’m coming, Danny, I’m just down the basement.’

Then everything started fading at the edges, and the last thing Aaron saw were Ben’s eyes, the familiar patient, calm expression raising so many more questions now that he knew about the Tower, knew more about Rachel – about everything…

…………………………………………

Aaron woke up, and knew he was awake this time, because he was on the sofa bed in the cabin at Crystal Lake and he knew that because his foot had got tangled up in the hole at the bottom of the mattress, and because the light of the lamp as he turned it on revealed the upholstery in it’s totally awful shade of purple sludge, probably originally called something stupid like eggplant dip or berry dumplings… 

He also knew how to turn the pendants on; and all he had to do now was to find out where Miles had put them.

He finally got his foot untangled and rolled off the bed with a grunt of effort, the thing had been more comfortable than the floor but not by much... Outside, through the open window, it was still dark but the air and light were just starting to change with approaching dawn. He sat on the edge of the couch and tried to remember what Miles had done with the pendants last night... Had he put them in his pocket or… Then he saw Miles’ backpack on the floor by the table where he’d thrown it and Aaron hurried over; for a (brief) moment, feeling bad about going through the guy’s things, but then he remembered what was at stake and kept looking…

The pendants were in a small, leather drawstring bag in one of the front pockets, and for a moment he sat there, just looking at them. They were so small really, like cheap pieces of costume jewelry, no one would ever think that maybe they held the secret to a technology that had changed the world…

He took one out of the bag, holding it the way he’d seen Ben hold his, then he put his thumb where Ben had and felt a tiny indentation and a bump, he rolled his thumb over them and suddenly the power sign on the front lit up and made that beautiful sound, like Ben’s pendant had at Grace’s house when Maggie’s iphone had come to life, and like it did at the lighthouse when he and those kids were hiding from the Militia…

The microwave in the kitchen beeped and kept beeping in a start up mode, the fluorescent ceiling light above his head flickered on off, on off and on again, the tv screen lit up in a hissing white blur… and Aaron’s lips curved in a smile of pure joy.

Then, from the bedroom came a blood-curdling scream, then another, then silence… 

Shit… Rachel, he’d forgotten about Rachel… Aaron turned the pendant off and shoved it back in the little bag. He stumbled getting to his feet, just managing it before the door burst in…

‘What the fuck did you do, Aaron?’ Miles was furious, his face strained as he ran to the bedroom…

Charlie was close on his heels, brushing past Aaron on the way to her mom, her panicked eyes catching his as she went past…

Rachel was sitting up on the bed, staring at the lamp in the corner of the room, her eyes wide and glazed, her lips working… She turned to Miles, ‘I dreamed about Randall Flynn, Miles…’ she tucked her knees up, her arms wrapping round them. ‘I dreamed the power went on again…’

‘It’s ok, Rach, it was just a dream, everything’s ok…’ Miles went over to the lamp, flicking the useless switch… ‘See?’ he met Charlie’s eyes, tipping his head to the door…

She nodded and turned to go, her eyes swerving to Aaron, ‘outside?’ 

Aaron bit his lip and followed her, the bag containing the pendants in his hand… 

The moonlight showed Monroe waiting under the trees that bordered the road at the side of the cabins, the glowing, hazy shape of a woman standing next to him… 

Aaron’s eyes widened, that had to be Rose, so he was actually seeing a ghost, the ghost… Long brownish misty hair floated around her shoulders and she was dressed in something long and flowing - he remembered Priscilla wearing a dress a bit like it, back when life was good… He kept walking towards them, but somehow, while Monroe became clearer, more defined in the darkness as he got closer, Rose didn’t, if anything she got harder to see, her outline fading into the foliage behind her…

Charlie looked up at Aaron; in the fading moonlight his face looked drawn, pale... ‘We saw the lights go on, Aaron, then mom screamed and we thought something must have gone wrong,’ she tucked her arm through his, feeling sorry for him... ‘So Rose came to you then, not my mom?’

He nodded, still chewing his lip, ‘Yeah, I’m sorry, Charlie’

‘Rachel’s mind is too fragile, too precarious, I didn’t dare try…so I went to Aaron’ The voice was soft and seemed to echo around them and Rose seemed to phase in and out of sight as she spoke, parts of her rippling as though she was being blown around by wind somewhere else…

Charlie let go of Aaron and went up to Bass, sliding an arm around his waist. She faced where she thought Rose’s face was although it was hard to tell… ’Mom screamed when she saw the lights go on, she thought this guy we met back at the Tower, a bad guy, had come back…’

Bass looked at Aaron, a sort of sympathy in his eyes…’you couldn’t have known that was going to happen, Aaron…’

Aaron met his eyes, a little surprised, but grateful anyway…

The cabin door rattled shut and Miles strode towards them, his hand out… ‘Hand ‘em over, Aaron’

Aaron held the bag out without arguing… ‘I’m sorry, Miles, I, I just… How is she?’

Miles took the pendants and shoved the bag into an inside pocket in his duster, ‘Well, if there was some valium in that wagon I’d be giving her some, but I’m hoping she’ll go back to sleep and think it was all just a dream…’ He took a deep breath, looking at each of them in turn… ‘Now we know they work, and that Aaron can turn them on, we can talk about how and when to use them once we’ve got some breathing space and somewhere to try them out some more… somewhere away from Rachel,’ then he shrugged, ‘but in the meantime’ he patted his pocket…’they stay with me, ok?’ 

Bass lifted an eyebrow, ‘fine with me…’

Charlie shook her head, ‘no problem here’

Rose had faded and gone…

Miles looked at Aaron, ‘next stop, you can show us how to turn the pendants on and we’ll split them up in case something happens and we’re separated.’

Bass nodded ‘good idea, Charlie can have one, you keep the other…’

Miles turned to him, ‘Bass, are you with us on this one, I mean, really with us? You’re not planning to run off and find the nearest helicopter or anything like that are you?’

Bass looked down at his feet then back up at Miles…‘I know a lot’s happened between us, Miles, some of it bad, and we haven’t always agreed on how to do things… But even if you’re still worried about trusting me after everything that’s happened, you can believe that I am here for Charlie, and that I’ll do everything in my power to help build a better world for her and if that means bringing these Patriot bastards down, then that’s what we’ll do, all of us together, ok?’ he stood very still, just waiting…

Miles nodded, his eyes very steady…’Fair enough…’

Charlie looked from one man to the other…’Ok, so now that that’s out of the way, can we get going?’

………………………………………….

The Rangers were left where they lay, both Miles and Bass agreeing that they’d only get dug up again if they did so it was a waste of time burying them, their fellow Rangers wouldn’t quit until they found them, buried, burned, whatever... But if Bass was right and the Patriots were going to try to blame him and possibly Miles for the deaths – once the bodies were found as well as those of the patriot soldiers back by the road near the farmhouse, they’d be the most wanted fugitives in Texas and possibly the rest of the country.

They did spend a little time erasing as many signs that they’d stayed at the cabins as possible, although there was no way to get rid of all the horse tracks. Before they left though, Miles and Bass rode out, laying a few false trails leading in different directions…

Then, they were off again, Bass taking point, Charlie spending time with him then circling back to travel for a while with the others.

Rachel was very quiet, sitting between Aaron and Miles, staring at the road ahead, an occasional frown creasing her brow, although mostly she just sat staring blankly ahead, her lips working…

As they got further away from the mountains and closer to Ludlow, there was still no sign of recent occupation or farming, they saw no domestic animals, no people, although the land itself seemed rich, fertile… It was quiet too, the only visible birds some crows circling above them, and somehow the air seemed muffled, any sounds indistinct… There was no sign either of Patriots or Texas Rangers, which of course wasn’t a bad thing…

Charlie had just returned from a brief midday meal break with the others who were about a quarter of a mile back down the road behind them and was riding next to Bass. Stony was behaving himself for once, going along at a steady lope next to the black and in front of the mule, although all three seemed a little nervous, their ears flickering… She looked around; it was so quiet, ‘don’t you think there’d be someone living around here, Bass?’

He shrugged…’It looks like good country, and yeah, usually I’d have expected to come across some sign of people by now,’ he leaned across the distance between them and handed her one of the tarot cards, ‘but then I found this in my pocket while you were back with the others..’

She took it, but looking at the picture sent a shudder of something like fear racing through her… ‘The devil?’ the figure on the card was ugly, horned and misshapen, its eyes, wide and staring, cruel and two tiny naked figures were chained at its feet, ‘It’s horrible, what do you think she means?’ she handed it back…

Bass took it and slipped it into his pocket, ‘look around you, Charlie’ he caught her eyes, the clear blue of his shadowed with worry…’something doesn’t feel right about this place…’

Suddenly there was a distant scream, then yelling from the wagon behind them… Charlie glanced at Bass and saw the same fear in his eyes that she was sure was in hers; then she turned Stony around and kicked him into a gallop.

The scream had been her mom and Miles was the one yelling…

Bass leapt off the black, unhitched Painful and latched her to a tree, then mounted back up and tore off after Charlie…

…………………………………….

Miles had seen some things in his life, but he couldn’t remember seeing anything like this. There was a ring of a couple of dozen ragged, grey people circled around them; men, women, children, their eyes burning in white, gaunt faces as they came closer… 

The horses were restless, stamping and snorting…

Rachel was staring at them, but after screaming once she’d fallen silent, just watching as the figures came closer, a mild curiosity growing in her eyes.

Aaron was staring too, although curiosity was the last thing on his mind, he just wished they were anywhere else but there, then he reached out a hand to cover one of hers…’It’s ok, Rachel, they aren’t real, they’re just…’

‘Ghosts, Aaron?’ Miles passed the reins to Aaron then shifted on his seat, reaching for his rifle… ‘Fuck this shit…’ his eyes shifted from one figure to the next, narrowing as his gaze rested briefly on a boy, the small figure thin and sad, then he lifted the rifle and aimed at one of the men, ‘You, stop right there or I will shoot’.

The figure hesitated for a second, then, like the others, just kept coming, and Aaron really didn’t want to know what would happen if the grey people got close enough to touch them...

Then a couple of things happened at once… Charlie arrived in a clatter of hooves and dust, Bass not far behind her and Rose appeared on the road in front of them, flashes of lightening surrounding her in a brightly glowing nimbus that dissolved the grey shapes into flickering dust wherever it touched them… 

Miles threw his rifle behind the seat, reached out and took the reins from Aaron and flicked the horses into a run, aiming for the gap that Rose had made in the ring and hoping like hell that none of the stuff in the wagon broke…

Charlie turned and raced next to them and Bass wheeled away into the trees, the black running parallel to the wagon, although both Aaron and Rachel had turned to watch what was happening behind them where the small, brightly shining figure of Rose was holding the grey figures at bay, lightening crackling around her…

Aaron thought he heard something, her voice, shouting at them to run… 

……………………………………….

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AN: I hope you are enjoying it so far ☺ there’ll be more soon, but I thought I’d pause there (it was getting long again…). I think there’ll be a couple (maybe three) more chapters to this, so thanks so much for reading if you’re still with me on this little journey and I hope you feel like sticking around for the rest… 
> 
> I’ve got a couple of Christmas stories to work on too (sweet…) for the Good ship and the Armada, cheers, Magpie


	11. into the fire...

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After Rose helps our heroes escape from the grey people near Ludlow, they continue on to Pueblo, hoping that they'll find some way of destroying the chemicals in the wagon.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author’s note:   
> Hi there and thanks so much for having a look at this, and for sticking with me during a long break in updates… ☺ The story is based on prompts from the Orgy Armada’s Revolution, The Second Coming and has taken on a life of it's own!! it keeps wanting to go further, do more...anyway, I don’t own any part of Revolution and am writing this purely for love of the show and its characters.

Miles kept the horses going, pushing them on until their sides were wet and heaving, sweat foaming white under the leather of the harness and dripping in long streams from their mouths, then finally he let them drop back to a walk...

Rachel seemed oblivious to everything and was staring off into space again, bolstered between Miles and Aaron, muttering and swaying with the motion of the wagon, her left hand twirling a strand of hair…

Charlie pulled up alongside the wagon, leaving Bass to go on ahead through the trees parallel to the road. Looking back the way they’d come, she edged a little closer, her voice harsh… ‘I think we’re ok, Miles, I can’t see anything coming back there.’

Aaron turned to look, his hands shaking a little, his face pale…‘So what the fuck were they?’

Keeping his eyes on the horses, Miles kept them moving to cool down – as well as to keep getting further away from the weird shit behind them. ‘We’re just the other side of Ludlow’ he frowned, ‘I remember hearing something about the place when I was a kid, there was a massacre there back in the day, a couple dozen mining people, men, women and kids, were burned alive,’ he shook his head ‘a really bad business, and if that was them, or what’s left of them, I’m not surprised that they’re pissed’

Charlie frowned ‘maybe the lightening woke them up too’ she looked back down the road again, it was still empty, still quiet, ‘I hope Rose is ok’

‘I thought I heard her telling us to run, Charlie,’ Aaron cleared his throat, shifting on his seat… ‘It looked like she was fighting them off, helping us…’

‘Yeah, like I said, I hope she’s ok,’ Charlie turned back to Miles, reefing Stony away and circling him round when he tried to scrape her leg against the wagon wall but keeping him going alongside…’how far are we from Pueblo, Miles?

He frowned then shrugged…‘at least another day and a half, a bit less if we keep going through the night although that depends on the horses, we’ll have to rest them somewhere along the way…’ he shuffled uneasily on the bench, looking over his shoulder then quickly back again, ‘But one thing I know for sure is that I want us to be as far away from here as possible by the time it gets dark.’

Aaron nodded, his eyes haunted, ‘Amen to that’

‘Yeah, me too.’ Charlie pulled Stony away from the wagon again and glanced at the sky, ‘We’ve got a couple of hours yet till sundown, I’ll go scout ahead and report back before dark, ok?’

‘Ok…’ Miles urged the reluctant horses on… ‘Be careful though, I’m betting someone’s found those bodies back at the farm and maybe the lake by now, we might have picked up a few followers....’

She nodded, ‘maybe we’ll get lucky and they’ll run into the grey people.’

Aaron shuddered, ’I wouldn’t wish that on anyone, not even the Patriots’

Charlie shrugged, careless, ‘better them than us.’

He looked at her, his eyes sad, ’you’ve changed, Charlie, you wouldn’t have said that a few months ago…’

She looked back at him, keeping the restless Stony on a tight rein… ‘What do you want me to say, Aaron? I’m just trying to keep us alive…’

Aaron looked away, ‘I know, it’s just…’ he shook his head, ‘nothing, it’s nothing…’

Miles darted a look at Charlie but didn’t say anything…

………………………………………….

‘Place looks deserted,’ Bass passed the binoculars to Charlie…

She took them, having a look for herself…

It was early morning on the third day since they left the farm and Bass and Charlie were laid out on their bellies on a little rise above the town of Pueblo which stretched out below them looking, as Bass said, deserted and empty.

Miles and the others were about half a mile back hidden a little way off the road; waiting for Charlie to report back…

She swept the glasses over the collection of hulking chimneys, metal stacks and tumbledown buildings that Bass had said were the remains of the steelworks museum and the patchwork landscape of the town itself, overgrown with trees, shrubs, weeds…still nothing… Then… ‘Bass?’ she passed the glasses over and pointed down at a small building on the main street. ’See? Over there.’

He put the glasses to his eyes, ‘yeah… I see him.’ 

An old man in sturdy working clothes, his hair and long beard snowy white in the midday sun, was heading towards the museum, driving a wagon pulled by what looked like an equally old grey donkey with a couple of black and white dogs, sheepdogs maybe, padding alongside and a jersey cow tied to the back of the wagon. 

Bass put the glasses down and turned to Charlie, his eyes very blue in the sunshine, ‘fancy a visit to the museum?’

She grinned, ‘sounds good to me.’ The grin became wicked behind the fall of her hair… ’You know what else I think sounds good?’

He grinned back, ‘what?’

She shrugged then rolled over so she was on her back and shuffled closer, ‘we’re alone, so you can kiss me…’

He leaned over her, the soft hair of his moustache and scruff lightly brushing the smooth skin of her cheeks, something he’d learned she loved, that set her senses reeling… ‘I like the way your mind works’ then his lips descended.

Charlie laughed against his mouth and relaxed back against the grass, enjoying the firm lips on hers, his tongue gently thrusting; the hard muscled body pressed up against her, his arms strong columns either side of her shoulders. She ran her hands up over the tight abs, her fingers playing with the hard little nipples then sliding up, spreading out over the broad shoulders, pulling him closer, loving the warm strength of him, the feeling of being surrounded by hot, hard flesh…

……………………………………………

They left the horses tied up outside the museum and Charlie knocked on the door.

A chorus of barks sounded loud on the inside, then a man’s voice telling them to shush then quiet. Then the door opened and Charlie was looking down the double barrel of the biggest gun she’d ever seen, the sound of a safety clicking off echoing loudly in her ears.

‘What do you want?’ the old man from the wagon was standing behind his gun, several assorted dog shapes sitting quiet but on alert in a semi-circle behind him.

Bass held his hands up, moving forwards just a little, just a little more in front of Charlie…’We’ve got some pre-blackout bio-weapons that we need incinerated, we’re hoping you can help’

The man’s bushy eyebrows lifted, ‘Now that’s a new one…’ he lowered the gun a little, his sharp eyes appraising. ‘No uniforms, so you aren’t those new Patriot types; they’re starched so stiff I wouldn’t be surprised if they kept their guns up their asses… So are you government people maybe?’ He looked Charlie up and down, the sharp eyes noting the brand on her wrist and darting up to her face, ’the young woman here’s ex-militia but then so are a lot of people these days’

Charlie bit her lip, she had a feeling this man was a whole lot smarter than he looked.

He turned those eyes to Bass and they narrowed, the gun rising a little again… ‘And you look familiar’

Bass took a deep breath, keeping his hands high. ‘Who we are, or were, doesn’t matter, what we’re trying to do does.’ He leveled his gaze on the old man, putting every shred of sincerity into his voice that he could find, ‘we need to destroy this stuff before it can be used against innocent people’

The gun lowered again, just a little, and the old man let out a long breath… ‘Maybe I believe you, maybe I’d even want to help if I could, but I can’t, the furnace needs power to start up,’ a couple of the dogs whined and he shrugged, ‘and in case you haven’t noticed, there isn’t any power.’

Charlie slowly raised her hands, ‘Can I show you something?’ She slowly reached up for the thong around her neck, pulling the pendant out from under her tank.

The old man tensed as she moved, the gun rising again, then he just looked puzzled, ‘so what’s that supposed to be?’ 

Charlie pressed the base with her thumb the way Aaron had shown them the night before and the little power symbol on the front pinged into life.

Behind the old man a couple of lamps suddenly went on and music floated out to them from further inside the building… a guitar and a man’s voice, singing ‘… cause I know, I don’t belong, here in heaven…’

The old man stared at the pendant for a long moment, then up at Charlie and Bass, tears falling down his cheeks into the white beard. Then he took a long breath, lowered the gun and clicked the safety back on. ‘You’d better come in…’

………………………………………

Miles drove the wagon in through the big double gates that led to the steelworks exhibits, Charlie and Bass coming in after him with Painful trailing reluctantly behind Bass’ black gelding.

Charlie dismounted near the wagon, tying Stony to the back… ‘Are Mom and Aaron ok, Miles?’

He nodded, ‘They’re fine, Aaron took the stuff of the wagon that we wanted to keep, now he’s cooking and your mom’s having a lie down’ he swung down from the bench seat, ‘they’re far enough away that she won’t see or hear anything, but close enough that Aaron can come get us if he needs to.’ He looked at the sturdy figure coming towards him pulling a flatbed trolley and held a hand out to shake when he got close enough…’Hi there, you must be Steve…’

The old man took the offered hand and shook it in a firm grip, ’and you’re Miles Matheson’ he chuckled, tipping his head towards Bass, ‘and over there’s Sebastian Monroe’ 

Bass turned from unloading Painful when he heard his name, gave a mock salute and a grin then turned back to what he was doing…

Steve shook his head, ‘two of the most wanted men in the country asking for my help’ he chuckled, ’this is turning out to be quite an unusual day…’

Miles’ lips twisted in a half grin although his eyes were grim and the lines around his mouth harsh. ‘You could say that,’ running a hand through his hair…’Have you got the furnace up and running yet, Steve?’ he pointed a thumb at the wagon, ‘the sooner that stuff is ash and gone the happier I’ll be’ he looked around, ‘we’ve still got a few hours before sundown.’

Steve nodded, ’I’ve got number three going, she’s hot enough to do the job without shouting it out to everyone within thirty miles’

Charlie finished unsaddling Stony and came over, stretching out the kinks from her back, laughing as three gangly puppies trotted along next to her, winding around her feet, their tails wagging furiously… 

Miles’ eyes softened a little as he looked at them, then he turned back to the old man, ’Charlie says you’ve been here since the blackout, Steve, why’d you stay?’

Steve shrugged, his shoulders heavy, ‘it’s my museum, I ran it, and when the blackout happened I had no where else I wanted to be, so I just stayed on’ he swept an arm out, indicating the yard and the fields beyond. ‘I’ve got room to myself, I mostly grow my own food, or trade for what I need in the next town,’ he reached down, patting the dog sitting at his feet and a black, furry tail thumped on the ground, ’and I’ve got plenty of company.’

Charlie smiled at the three pairs of lively, intelligent brown eyes gazing up at her from the ground near her feet and three more tails thumped, one patchy brown, two black… ‘They’re lovely…’ 

Bass came over, standing just behind Charlie, bending down to run a hand over a smooth black and white head; caressing the soft ears, rubbing the offered belly as the puppy flung himself over onto his back, legs waving in the air, tongue lolling. ‘I’ve missed having dogs around…’

Steve smiled, proud, ‘yeah, they’re pretty special’ He studied Charlie’s face, ‘would you like a puppy or two? These guys are ready to go to a new home,’ he looked at Bass then back to Charlie ‘they’re smart, if you trained them right they’d help you hunt, guard your camp…’ he looked over at Painful, ‘I’d take the mule in trade if you haven’t got the diamonds, my donkey’s way overdue for retirement…’

Charlie was tempted, and she could feel that Bass was too… ‘I don’t know Steve, like you said, everyone’s after us, Patriots, Bounty hunters, Rangers’ she frowned, ‘we don’t even know if we’ll make it through tomorrow, let alone live long enough for these guys to learn to guard us or anything else, they’d be better off with you, or on a farm somewhere…’ 

Miles looked away, frowning, then turned back… ‘This is all really nice, guys, but maybe you can play with the puppies later, I’d really like to get this crap in the burner before the Patriots or Texas do find us…’

Charlie jumped, then nodded, ’you’re right, Miles, sorry…’ she turned to Steve and pointed at the trolley, ’can we load up now?’

Steve nodded, glancing at Miles then back to her, ‘Yeah, fire’s nearly ready…’

Bass gave the puppy a final pat, then stood up and walked over to the wagon, reaching for one of the boxes and brushing past Miles on the way, ‘Lighten up, Miles; if Charlie wants a puppy, where’s the harm in it?’ his voice was low, intense, ‘It might even help her get through all of this…’

Miles followed him and picked up one of the boxes himself, his voice harsh, uncompromising, ‘it’s just one more thing for her to lose, Bass…’

The two men looked at each other for a long, long moment, then Bass turned away, ‘you could try having a little hope, Miles...’ 

Miles huffed…’Hope? What the fuck makes you think there’s any hope for any of us?’ he turned to where Charlie and Steve had placed the trolley, carried the box over and put it down…

Bass stared after him; the blue eyes full of something… understanding? Sympathy? then he took his own load over…

………………………………………

By the time they had most of the load on the trolley, moving carefully, gently, stacking the boxes so nothing would break on the way, Steve’s face was grim, his lips tight… ‘So those Patriot bastards were actually planning to use this stuff on people? Animals?’ He’d tied the dogs up, worried that their curiosity and sensitive noses might get them into trouble, and he glanced across at them, his eyes angry... ‘That’s inhuman, as if we haven’t lost enough…’ he shook his head, carefully placing another box on top of the others already on the trolley, then turned to Miles ‘and they were the ones who sent the bombs too?’

Miles nodded…’yeah, we saw one of them do it, in Colorado, we were trying to stop him but he locked himself inside the control room and pushed the button. Seeing it all happen sent Charlie’s mom into a kind of mental breakdown’ he sighed, ‘We’ve been travelling since then and found this stuff on the way by accident…’ he shrugged, ‘sort of… Then Bass remembered that there was a furnace here, so we thought we’d try to get rid of it, keep it out of their hands.’

‘And I’m glad you came,’ Steve looked over at Charlie, lifting a box from the other side of the wagon, Bass helping her, ‘She’s young to have seen so much trouble…’

Miles nodded, letting a breath out through his teeth…’Yeah’

Bass and Charlie arrived, carrying the last box between them and placing it carefully on top of the others. Bass patted the top, gently, ‘that’s it, that’s all of it’ he looked at Steve, ’time to rock and roll…’

………………………………………

Steve had set his iPod up next to the furnace, away from the heat but within range of the pendant, music blaring, raucous, heavy and irresistible, rising above the roar of the flames…

Bass grinned, ‘ACDC? What happened to Eric Clapton?’

Steve shrugged and grinned back…’The last song I heard on this thing before the blackout was about heaven, so I figured it was time to raise some hell…’

Charlie raised an eyebrow, ‘it’s really loud…’

Steve laughed, a big, belly laugh, ‘I never thought I’d hear anyone under thirty say that…’ then he checked the temperature readouts on the furnace, clapping his hands together… ‘She’s hot enough, folks, so it’s time to start incinerating this crapola’ He flipped a switch and a metal conveyer belt started rolling towards the machine, creaking and groaning… ‘We’d better be quick though, she’s a little bit rusty after all this time and I’m not sure how long the fuel will hold out…’

They worked together, loading box after box onto the belt, watching them roll forwards into the mouth of the furnace, disappearing into the fire one by one…

Steve had held back the canisters of gas for last, and as the final boxes of the biohazard material went into the furnace, he turned to the others, ‘I’m not sure what these are going to do when they get hot, folks’ He looked at each of them, ‘if they blow up and set the furnace off too, we could all die, and there’s no point in that…’

Miles took a deep breath, ‘so what are you saying, Steve?’

The old man looked at them…’I always figured I’d lasted out here this long for a reason, and this is as good as any I could think of. Now you all head outside so you can get away if you need to, I’ll stay and make sure these are loaded and burning, then run…’

Bass stepped forwards, ‘I’m probably a fair bit faster than you, Steve… I’ll do it’

Charlie jerked, her eyes flashing to his face…

Steve noticed and smiled…’Nah, I reckon you’re needed right where you are’ he patted the edge of the conveyer, ‘she’s mine, I know her ways even after all this time and I might have to nurse her along a bit to make sure it’s all gone, and none of you’d know what to do.’ He picked up a couple of canisters, ‘now go on outside, all of you, I’ll be there soon, don’t you worry,’ he nodded to each of them, ending with Charlie, ‘but if for some reason I don’t come out, will you make sure my dogs are ok? That they get to good homes?’ he grinned, his eyes twinkling, ‘there’s the donkey and that damn Jersey cow too’

She nodded, biting her lip, ‘I’ll look after them…’

He nodded back ‘I believe you will, thank you…’ he turned to the conveyer, ‘now go on, get outta here…’

They’d just got to the courtyard where they’d left the horses and the wagon and where the dogs were tied up when the furnace behind them exploded in a huge ball of flame and flying debris, most of it caught by the containment walls but the lighter stuff raining down, the horses rearing in panic and the dogs barking, straining at their leashes…

Bass pulled Charlie towards him and out of the way of a falling chunk of burning metal, Miles on her other side, his arm up as a shield, the air thick with heat, ash and dust, then the three of them ran to get the horses under whatever cover they could.

Miles looked back at the burning mass of the furnace as he ran, a thick, swirling column of oily black smoke was rising into the sky like a black fist. It’d be visible for miles around, especially once it got dark, and there was no sign of Steve…

He turned to Bass ‘We’ve got to get outta here, now…’

Bass nodded, ‘you’re reading my mail’

Aaron appeared at the gates, puffing, his face panicked as he looked at the mess in front of him… ‘What the fuck did you do?’ He held out his hands, he was holding what looked like half the deck of tarot cards… ‘Rose is back’ he heaved a breath, ‘and I think she’s gone crazy…’

…………………………………………

The tall man lowered his binoculars, the star on his chest glinting in the evening sun…’Do you think it’s anything to do with them?’

A second Ranger lowered his own, ‘it’s worth a look…’ he turned to the half dozen others on the hill behind him. ‘Mount up, boys, we’re going to Pueblo.’

………………………………………..

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AN, thanks for reading – and I’m sorry it’s been so long between updates!! Stories in between, holidays etc etc…. I’ve got the next bit (possibly the last bit, I’m not quite sure…) percolating now, but I have a couple of other stories to get out as well, anyway, hope you’re enjoying it, cheers, Magpie


	12. Thank you Mr Sandman

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Miles, Bass, Charlie, Aaron and an almost catatonic Rachel are in Pueblo, having found a working furnace and it's caretaker, Steve, in the Museum there. After using one of the pendants to fire up the furnace and incinerating most of the Patriot viruses, poisons and poison gas that they'd found in the Patriot wagon, Steve had told Miles, Bass and Charlie to run while he made sure the gas cylinders burned, because he wasn't sure if things weren't going to go pie shaped.
> 
> As they ran out, Aaron turned up at the museum gates with a warning of danger from their ghost friend, Rose...
> 
> Then the furnace exploded...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author’s note:  
> Hi there and thank you so much for having a look at this, for being so patient because it has been a little while between updates - and for travelling with me… ☺ The story started out based on prompts from the Orgy Armada’s Revolution, The Second Coming but it sort of took on a life of its own. It felt like time to wrap it up, though, so this is almost the last for now - although there will be an epilogue soon. 
> 
> Down the track there might be more stories to tell from this universe – so if you’d like to know more, please let me know... cheers, Magpie.

Rose had basically thrown the whole pack of cards at Aaron, but they all felt a sense of urgency, a need to move quickly, even without her warning.

Aaron’s face had gone white when everything exploded, then he’d yelled something at them about getting Rachel and their stuff ready to go, then he was gone...

Charlie coughed and spluttered as she ran out of the spreading clouds of dust and smoke behind Miles and Bass, trying to get the taste of the oily stuff out of her lungs. 

Back in the yard, they found the horses restless, frightened, and all the dogs barking, leaping up, twisting and straining at the end of their tethers, trying to get free, their high, excited yips echoing around the yard. Miles ran to the front of the wagon, working to calm the horses, the dogs settling a little with humans nearby although they were still upset, still searching the smoky air…

Bass started throwing the bags he’d taken off Painful earlier into the back of the wagon, careless of where they landed, just wanting to get the stuff loaded.

Charlie looked around, trying to work out where Steve would keep the donkey and what the hell were they going to do with a jersey cow? She had just decided to put the dogs in the wagon and was heading over to untie them when she saw something, a bulky shape coming towards them out of the smoke. She turned and ran towards it, shouting over her shoulder…’Miles? Bass? Quick, it’s Steve, I think he’s ok.’

Miles had his hands full with the wagon and the horses but Bass tossed another bundle into the back and came running…

Steve came stumbling and retching out of the smoke to a chorus of wildly excited barks. Bright red blood was trickling down one side of his face and he was coughing in harsh, wracking heaves. His beard was singed and still smoking and his clothes black with soot and grime, but in between coughs he had a big grin on his face…

Charlie reached him just ahead of Bass and they each took an arm, helping the old man across to a bench seat against the back wall of the house, letting him gently down onto it…

‘Thanks, you two,’ Steve looked up at them; his eyes bright although red rimmed and streaming. He held out a filthy hand, the thick, work-roughened fingers clenched over something. ‘We did it, it’s all gone… and here, I managed to grab this on the way out.’ He grinned again, teeth white against a soot blackened face, ‘I couldn’t let those Patriot bastards get their hands on it, could I?’ The pendant gleamed in his palm as he opened his hand out. 

Charlie grinned back… ’You’re something else Steve, d’you know that?’ she took the pendant, looping the blackened leather thong around her neck, ‘what about your music thing?’

He grinned, patting his shirt pocket… ‘Just in case you guys get the power back on somehow…’ Then the dog’s barking changed, becoming harsher, growling, and Steve sat up straight, ‘Someone’s coming…’ He looked around the yard, searching; then nodded... ‘Get the wagon and your gear into the shed over there, the double doors, see ‘em?’

Bass looked, ‘yeah?‘ he looked Steve up and down, his eyes worried… ‘So what about you?’

The old face creased into a smile, every wrinkle outlined in black…’I’ll tell ‘em an old fuel tank exploded while I was doing some maintenance… ’ 

Charlie frowned, ‘what if they see our tracks?’

Steve got to his feet, favouring one leg slightly… He shrugged ‘then I’ll tell em I saw you but you’re long gone… Don’t worry, it’ll be ok.’ He started to head into the house, ‘let the dogs off for me will you?’

Charlie nodded, ran over to do that and all five raced across to join their master in a tumble of black and white and golden brown… 

Steve bent to pat them, grinning at the wagging tails and eager faces looking up at him, then he looked up at Bass… ‘The shed’s partitioned off, go through to the back and there’s a big set of doors on the back wall that lead out to the lane, they look rusty but they’ll move ok if you’re careful and if you have to you can get the wagon out that way.’ He winced and leaned back against the door, ‘but wait and see, let me try and get rid of them first, just in case they’ve got eyes on the roads.’ He turned to go in again, then changed his mind, ‘Oh… and maybe if you leave the mule tied up there it might help explain the droppings and the tracks?’ 

Bass chuckled…’you really want that mule don’t you…’

Steve grinned again, ‘can’t blame a man for trying’ 

‘She bites…’

‘Never met a mule that didn’t…’

……………………………………………

Miles and Bass worked quickly to get the wagon, the black and Stony into the shed and out of sight and Charlie did a quick sweep to make sure they hadn’t left anything behind - except Painful, who greeted her with an expectant whicker…

She gave the mule a quick pat and left her tied up, wincing at the almost human look of betrayal in the big brown eyes then headed into the shed, stealing a quick glance at the sky above them where smoke was still billowing in huge, dirty, roiling drifts after the explosion. She stared… right above their heads loomed a thick cloud of smoke that looked like the fist of the devil on Rose’s card, a finger pointed straight down at them. She choked off a laugh, silly, must be all the ghost stuff… but so much for getting in and out of Pueblo quietly.

The sound of hoof beats echoed down the road… several horses by the sound of it so Charlie scuffled her tracks and darted in to join Bass and Miles.

……………………………………………

Miles stayed with the wagon and the horses while Charlie and Bass found the ladder up to the shed’s mezzanine and shimmied up, crawling through the straw, dust and layers of bird droppings to a small, dirty window that looked down over the courtyard.

There were eight riders, and they came clattering through the gates, over the cobblestones and wheeled into the dusty yard.

‘Who are they?’ Charlie held the binoculars up to her eyes for a moment then passed them across.

He took them although he didn’t need glasses to know who the riders were. ‘Texas Rangers, Charlie, live ones this time, and they’ve been kind enough to cover any tracks we might have left out there…’ Bass met her eyes, his brimming with a kind of humour.

She grinned back, ‘Well, I guess that makes them good for something…’ then she froze, ‘so who’s that coming in after them then…’ 

A wagon rolled in through the gates, a driver and a guard up the front and a thin older man in a long trench coat looking like the Nazi interrogator out of Raiders of the Lost Ark... ‘Don’t know, Charlie, the markings on the wagon are the same as on ours, so my guess is he’s a Patriot, and what he’s doing with Texas is a bit of a mystery…’ Bass studied the newcomer through the glasses, ‘but I bet I can tell you the name of his favourite movie…’

‘His name is Horn, and he’s looking for Rachel, but he mustn’t find her…’

The whispery voice came from behind them and Charlie swung around to find the hazy form of a woman kneeling by the top of the ladder… She felt her eyes go wide, it was the first time she’d seen their ghost up close, back on the road she’d been too busy running away from the grey people to look back at Rose and back at Crystal Lakes cabins she’d kind of had other things on her mind... She tried to focus on the shadowy face but it kept sliding away somehow, and the long hair was flying around in a breeze that wasn’t there… ‘What does he want with my Mom, Rose?’

The transparent face got a little clearer, the eyes a whirling, hypnotic misty grey…‘He knows about her, he worked in the same place as she did. He knows about the pendants and he wants them back, he knows that the technology Rachel and your father developed was used to cause the blackout, and he’s heard of the strange things that have been happening. He thinks she’ll be able to explain them, help him get what he wants…’ 

Bass frowned, glancing round at her, ‘Ok, so what does he want?’

Rose flickered…’He’s thinking of a town called Lubbock in Texas where there’s a man who’s healing people, and he’s thinking of one of his men who saw the Grey people on the road past Ludlow and escaped’ She came closer, moving towards Bass, ‘he’s thinking about taking the power for himself, using Rachel and the healing man and the pendants to take over from the man who’s in charge of the Patriots now, someone called Davis?’ Her face looked almost solid for a moment, her eyes meeting his then turning to Charlie, ‘he’s thinking terrible things, Charlie, he doesn’t care about hurting anyone or anything, just the power…’ She shivered, light and dark ripples skittering through her skin. ‘He’s evil.’ 

Then she vanished…

Charlie looked out the window. Horn had got out of the wagon and was standing in front of Steve, one of the Rangers holding the old man’s arm. There was no sign of the dogs.

Bass tensed as Horn slapped his gloves into a hand and turned, his eyes skating over the yard like pale search beams… ‘Keep very still Charlie, and don’t look at him.’

She nodded, ’think like a brick, I know,’ She stared into space and concentrated on being invisible. 

Horn looked up, his eyes roving up over the buildings and up to the black cloud above them then back down, settling on the shed for a long, excruciating moment... Then, he turned and climbed back into the wagon, tipping his hat to Steve as the wagon turned and headed back out the gate. 

Charlie let a breath out that she knew damn well she’d been holding.

Bass kept watching out the window, ‘The Rangers are heading out too, Charlie’ he chuckled, ‘maybe we should give Steve one of the pendants, he sure as shit deserves it.’

She nodded again, a relieved smile curving her lips, ‘yeah…’

Miles’ head appeared at the top of the ladder, ’Get down here, Bass, that fucking black horse of yours keeps trying to eat my coat…’

……………………………………………

Once they were sure the Rangers and Horn had gone, Bass and Steve got to work disguising the wagon, covering up any marks identifying it as Patriot and bedding down the horses. In the meantime Charlie and Miles took Painful and between them and Aaron they’d managed to walk her mom and their stuff to the museum and one of Steve’s spare rooms. 

Rachel hadn’t said a word, just walked where they told her to, then sank down onto the bed in the cosy little room and closed her eyes. She was lying on her side now, sleeping, one hand with it’s thin, dirty fingers resting on the pillow next to her head. The once lovely hair was stringy and unkempt and she looked drawn, cheekbones high and stark above hollow cheeks and dark circles under the closed eyes. 

Charlie sighed and pulled the blanket up a little to cover one thin shoulder. Aaron had given her mom something from the wagon supplies to try to help her sleep properly and stop the nightmares and to her relief it looked as though it was working. Her mom was in a deep sleep. 

It didn’t seem to matter what else they tried to do for her though - she seemed to be getting worse, more distant, further away from them…

Charlie turned the lamp to low then went to join the others in the kitchen.

………………………………………

The large, open plan kitchen was warm and bright, candles and lamps making a cheerful glow inside although thick blackout curtains covered the windows to keep the lights from showing too bright outside. A rabbit stew was bubbling away on the wood fired range and the smell of apples roasting joined the aroma of freshly ground coffee that filled the kitchen…

They’d decided to stay put for a day or so to give Horn and his men and the Rangers time to get further away and everyone was gathered around Steve’s big kitchen table, the puppies in furry piles around various feet while the adult dogs were stationed outside on guard duty. 

Steve took a reverent sip from his mug, then closed his eyes as he swallowed, a blissful smile spreading across his face… ‘I never thought I’d taste coffee like this again…’ he lifted the mug and toasted Bass, then the pendant hanging from a hook on the wall, ‘Bass, for an ex-President and former Marine, you make a damn fine cup of coffee’

Bass chuckled as he started on another cup, his hands moving deftly around the espresso machine, ‘the guys in our unit used to rib me about being fussy, but I loved the ritual of it’

Miles grinned, sipping from his own cup, ‘they thought the only coffee good enough for a Marine was three days old, thick enough to stand on and brewed in a tin hat…’ 

Aaron had a beatific smile on his face, ‘this is the best coffee I’ve had since the blackout…’ he leaned across the table and picked up the jug of cream, pouring a little more into his mug… ’And cream, actual honest to goodness cream’

Steve smiled, proud…’Jersey cream is the best’

Charlie shook her head, took a sip of hers and wrinkled her nose, ’it’s different.’ 

The others turned to her, wearing almost identical expressions of mixed disbelief and outrage.

She lifted an eyebrow and shrugged ‘sorry…’ then took another sip, ’it’s ok, I guess’

Aaron shook his head, a little bit of cream framing his moustache, ‘Ok? Charlie, there are people who would kill for a taste of this’

She shrugged again, ‘I believe you, it’s just not my thing, I guess’ she pointed at his top lip with a grin… ’And by the way, you’ve got cream on your moustache…’

Aaron jumped, wiped it off then he brightened and reached across the table, ‘if you don’t want it, give it here, I’ll have it’

‘Hey,’ Charlie pulled away, ‘I didn’t say I didn’t want it’

Miles ran a hand through his hair, then leaned towards them over the table, his cup cradled between his hands… ‘Sorry to burst the bubble, guys, but we need to talk about what we’re going to do next’

Bass finished making his coffee, flipped the grounds cup and tapped the grounds into the scraps bucket, ‘We could just leave them to duke it out – Horn’ll take care of Davis then Texas’ll take care of Horn once they realize the kind of guy they’ve gone to bed with.’ He came over to the table, taking a sip as he walked and sitting down next to Charlie, one long leg splayed out under the table, the other crooked next to hers, a hard knee resting against her thigh and an arm snaked over the back of her chair.

Charlie leaned back against the arm with a sigh. Her foot was next to his under the table and she rubbed it up over his calf, ‘Rose said Horn was really bad, Bass, what if he’s worse than this Davis?’

Miles nodded, ‘If she’s right about him, it does seem a bit like saying it’s ok for Darth Vader to take over the empire because he’s gotta be better than the last guy…’

Aaron nodded, ‘yeah…’

Steve nodded too ’the little guy, the one in the wagon? He was seriously weird,’ he shuddered, ‘he had these crazy eyes - and that outfit? He looked like a Nazi,’ he looked around the table, his beard vibrating, ‘and the idea of him running things gives me the galloping heeby-jeebies.’ A thick eyebrow rose, ‘If it hadn’t been for your lovely non-corporeal friend helping out and doing the ‘these are not the droids you’re looking for’ thing,’ he made an exaggerated Jedi gesture in front of his face, ‘I think he and his tame Rangers would have had me strung up by my toenails and pulling out my short and curly’s one by one to find out if I’d seen you and that wagon’ 

Charlie was looking a little confused, ‘can you all just speak English, please?’

Bass stared at the old man, ‘You saw Rose?’ 

Steve’s lips curved into a soft smile, ‘Of course I did, she was standing right next to me, large as life and twice as pretty’

Charlie felt her eyes go wide, ‘and they saw her too?’

They were all looking at Steve now. 

Aaron’s mouth was a little open, his coffee cup hovering somewhere between the table and his lips…

Miles cleared his throat ‘so did they? See her?’

Steve nodded ‘Yeah… can’t you?’ he tilted his head towards the empty chair next to him, ‘she’s right there’

Charlie looked, and now that she did, the outline of a woman sitting on the chair and smiling was quite clear, and when she met the hazy eyes, there was a sense of happiness, of peace there and somehow she knew that Rose was going to stay here, with Steve, that this was goodbye.

The hazy face nodded, smiling back at her, and she heard the light, silvery voice….‘I knew you’d understand, Charlie’ There was laughter that sounded as though it was coming from far away, then the voice again…‘It’s not goodbye quite yet though.’

Bass took a deep breath and looked at Miles and Aaron, ‘so, we go on to Texas then? Take our chances with Gene?’ his arm tightened around Charlie...

Aaron cleared his throat, ‘I think I might have an idea’

They all turned to him.

Miles looked impatient, ‘Ok, let’s hear it, Aaron’ 

Aaron drained his mug and set it down, ‘when Rose sent me to see how the pendants worked? I was in Ben’s house, in the basement and I saw his desk…’ 

Charlie felt tears rising and she swallowed them down…‘and you saw Dad, And Danny’

He nodded, ‘and Maggie, I saw Maggie too.’

There was silence for a long moment…

Steve looked at the faces round the table and his smile faded, ‘I can see you’ve all been through some stuff…’

Aaron choked off a laugh that sounded more like a sob…’You could say that.’ Then he took a deep, deep breath. ‘Anyway, I saw things on Ben’s desk, papers, schematics, pages of calculations’ he looked at Bass, ‘lots of it, about the pendants, the Nanotech, other stuff.’ His eyes dropped then lifted to Bass again, determined, ‘so I have to ask you, when Tom Neville brought Danny to you in Philadelphia, did he bring any papers as well? Anything of Ben’s?’

Bass went very still then slowly shook his head, ‘No… no he didn’t’

Miles sat up straight ‘so Ben’s things could still be there? In the house?’

Charlie didn’t know what to think, how to feel. She had a bad feeling about where this was heading and honestly didn’t know what to do. Her heart was pounding in her chest so hard she knew Bass could feel it… She leaned back against him, wanting him to know that she didn’t blame him, not anymore…

Aaron chewed his lip, ’it was way down in a corner of the basement and the desk looked like a metal one, with a filing cabinet drawer under it, you know? And the monitor looked like any other old, junk computer,’ he shrugged, ‘so maybe people would have just left it?’ 

He picked up his mug looking hopefully inside, tipped it up to get the last little drop, then put it back down… ’Anyway, It’s worth a try isn’t it? Especially now we’ve got the pendants. Maybe Ben had something on his computer that we could use?’

Bass nodded, ‘Aaron’s right, we have to go check it out’

Charlie sat up and looked round at Bass, but she already knew what she’d find in his eyes, and she was right, the blue eyes met hers with regret and apology in their depths…

She turned back to Miles, shaking her head in denial, ‘No, no, we’re stronger if we stick together, we take Mom to Grandpa Gene and then we all go, Ok?’

Miles met Bass’ eyes for a long moment, then moved his gaze down to Charlie, the brown eyes sympathetic, but resigned…‘I’m sorry, Charlie, but this is too important and you know it, if there’s any chance at all that Ben has left something we can use to win this thing, then we’ve got to take it…’

Bass sighed and tightened his grip around Charlie’s shoulders, ‘I’ll go with you Aaron, Miles and Charlie can take Rachel to Gene and we’ll all meet up in Willoughby in a few weeks,’ 

Miles nodded, ‘sounds like a plan’

Aaron looked down, ‘Thanks,’ he let out a breath through his teeth, then looked up at Miles, then Bass… ‘Ok, so when do we leave?’

……………………………………………

Later that night, Charlie smoothed out the white satin sheets on another of Steve’s spare beds – it was lucky the place used to offer accommodation as well as being a museum, so everyone had a bed tonight… Then everything went blurry for a minute as her eyes filled with stupid tears, again... She and Bass had so little time together – in real time anyway - and fear for him, and Aaron, felt like a solid lump of rock in her belly. 

She pulled the towel from around her and bent over, fluffing the water out of her hair with the thick fabric. Wonder of wonders, the electric water heater still worked, and there’d been magical loads of hot water for baths… She’d even managed to help her mom have a proper wash. They’d also been able to do some laundry and Steve’s drying room was full of almost clean clothes and bedding, ready for tomorrow.

Tomorrow, when Bass and Aaron headed off for Wisconsin, to a town full of ghosts - and she, Miles and her mom headed off alone for Willoughby.

Then a warm, hard muscled pair of arms slid around her from behind, her breasts mounding above ridged forearms and an even warmer body pressed up close to her, his thick, hard, velvety cock sliding between her ass cheeks… She chuckled as his scruff tickled the side of her neck then she dropped the towel, arching back against him, pressing her legs together, squeezing him tight as his lips kissed their way to her ear lobe, his teeth gently nibbling and sucking at the sensitive skin, making her shiver.

He wound his arms round her tighter, as though he didn’t want to let her go, and he didn’t…’Hello Charlotte.’

She reached back, her head falling back onto his shoulder, her hands playing with his hair, the curls damp and springy between her fingers… ‘Hello Sebastian’

He laughed, ‘I love the way you say my name,’ He reached down, hooking a hand under one of her thighs, lifting it, his cock sliding part way inside her slippery core… He groaned, ’damn it, I’m too tall to get inside you like this,’

Charlie wriggled, circling her hips and tipping them forwards, teasing him. ‘So what are you going to do about it?’

He pulled out and swung her up into his arms, his eyes gleaming down at her, little blue and golden lights dancing in them from the lamps and mirrors in the room. He chuckled, ‘This…’ Then he lowered her onto the bed, sank to his knees next to it and pulled one of her legs up over his shoulder. He looked down at her body spread open in front of him and stroked a hand up her thigh to her pussy, his hand covering her mound, his fingers slipping between her pussy lips and over her clit, his palm circling her, pressing onto her soft, wet, swollen flesh. 

Charlie sat up a little, so she could see.

He smiled, ‘you’re one gorgeous woman, Charlie.’ Then he leaned down, his eyes staying on hers as his fingers spread her lips apart, the little bud of her clit looking pink and shining in her juices. He licked his lips then gently licked her clit.

She gasped, her hips jerking up towards him.

He smiled again… Then dipped down to lick some more, nibbling and sucking until she was squirming in his hands, her breath coming in hoarse, begging gasps, her juices making his scruff dark golden, the hairs of his beard catching on her own curls, making the skin of her fleshy lips tingle… Then dipped his tongue inside her, hard and as deep as he could, watching as her eyes rolled up and her lips opened in a scream of pleasure…

Charlie felt everything splinter into little shiny pieces… Then felt him as he reared above her, her leg still over his shoulder as he surged into her hard and fast and deep, his thickness so familiar now, and so very, very welcome. She wrapped her other leg around him, her clit still throbbing, pulling him in deeper, harder, her lips searching for his, finding them, her arms holding him as close as she could as she lay underneath him on the cool, slippery sheets, his body sliding into hers, again and again, surrounding her until all she could feel was him, inside her, her orgasm this time slow and deep, and so, so sweet…melting her bones and spinning her round and round until she was dizzy and all she could see was those blue eyes so, so close to hers and his lips, kissing her over and over, his lips hard and demanding, and so, so . 

She felt her eyes fill again and she held him tight, holding on with arms and legs, keeping him there, inside, not wanting him to go, she didn’t want him to go…

‘Charlie?’

She held on tighter, ‘I don’t want you to go, Bass, what if Rose can’t reach us? What if something happens to you? To Aaron? It’s such a long way away.’ She met his eyes again, ‘She’s staying here with Steve, Bass. Did you know that?’

He kissed her, gently this time, ‘I know, but it’s alright, Charlie, it’ll be alright, It’s just a few weeks…’

She looked up at him, her eyes an urgent, swimming blue, ‘You take one of the sheets, and I’ll take the other, ok?’

He kissed her again, settling down next to her on the bed and pulling her in beside him, his big body spooned around hers, ‘We’ll do whatever you want, Charlie.’ He lifted one of her hands and brought it to his mouth, kissing her fingers. ‘Whatever you want…’

She turned in his arms, her lips searching for his in a desperate, searching kiss. As though it was the last time…  
………………………………….

Bass and Aaron left first, just after dawn, in an old farm wagon that Steve had been just finished refurbishing, drawn by Stony and the black. They took one of the pendants with them as well as a new stash of supplies from Steve’s well-stocked storeroom. 

Miles and Charlie were taking the other pendant with them to Willoughby. Steve had refused to accept it, saying he had been repaid enough with Painful – and Rose… 

Charlie waved them off, still feeling the strength of Bass’ arms around her, his kiss on her lips…

Miles waved too then pulled her into a sideways hug, and she hugged him back, grateful for the contact. 

She sighed, ‘I hope they’ll be ok.’

He shrugged, the heavy muscles of his chest and shoulder moving under her cheek ‘Don’t worry, Bass’ll keep Aaron from getting killed and Aaron’ll keep Bass from doing anything too stupid.’ Then he chuckled. ’It’s funny but the two of them actually seem to be hitting it off pretty well’

She smiled, just a little, ‘yeah, I did notice that,’ Then she blew out a long breath and glanced up at him… ‘You know, if you’d said to me a couple of months ago that I’d have feelings for Sebastian Monroe, Miles, I’d have said you were crazy’ she shrugged, ‘and I’d have probably hit you…’

Miles dropped a kiss on the top of her head, ’That goes double for me, Charlie, but if there’s one thing I know for damn sure, it’s that you can’t always choose who you love’

She smiled, and hugged him tighter, ‘yeah…’

Steve joined them, sucking a finger, ’that damn mule bit me…’

Charlie did laugh then...

………………………………………..

Charlie, Miles and Rachel left for Willoughby a couple of hours later. 

Rachel had looked a little confused when Aaron didn’t join them, but she didn’t say anything, just got on the wagon…

Charlie had a little package in her bag, with instructions from Aaron on how to use the stuff in it to help her mom sleep. The rest of the Patriot drugs were in their crates in the back of the wagon, hidden as best they could – the stuff they’d kept anyway. They were planning to show it to Gene, to try to get him back on their side… 

Also in Charlie’s bag, wrapped in a clean towel, was one white, satin sheet.

Steve waved them off, with Rose a faint, wavering outline standing next to him, waving too, the dogs somehow dancing around her feet, not through them…

Charlie sighed, ‘Do you think we’ll be ok?’

Miles chuckled, ‘Well, I’ll try to keep us alive if you keep me from doing anything too stupid’

She grinned, ‘sounds like a plan…’

…………………………………………

That night they found another old farmhouse, abandoned for years but still sturdy. Miles was on first watch and Rachel was sleeping on a couch in the lounge room.

Charlie laid her bedroll out in the room next to her mom and carefully laid the white sheet down over it.  
Just having it there made her feel better about being alone, and the sheet smelled of him, of Bass, of them together and she ran her hand over it, slowly, enjoying the smooth feel of it...

She took her belt off, laid it on the floor next to her bedroll and sat down to loosen her boots. The moonlight shone in through the open windows, misty through the tattered remnants of flowered lace curtains… She sighed, then turned when she saw something out of the corner of her eye that definitely hadn’t been there before…

A tarot card lay on her pillow, the little naked lovers smiling up at her…

…………………………………………

Bass and Aaron had found a barn, and driven the wagon inside. The horses were tethered out to graze and Aaron had taken first watch, stationed outside the big double doors. 

Bass was stretched out by the back of the wagon. His bedroll cushioned on some old straw and the white sheet laid out over that. Aaron had looked at him a little strangely when he saw it, but he hadn’t said anything, in fact, if Bass didn’t know better, he’d have said there was sympathy in those clever eyes.

He lay back, the sheet cool under his hands and smelling wonderfully of Charlie, of them together... His eyes closed as he drifted off, thinking of her, missing her already…

The next thing he knew, she was there, his heavy, full cock told him she was there, his arms knew she was within them, his body knew she was on top of him, her skin smooth and warm, lithe body muscled and strong from the hunting, walking, fighting. Her legs woven between his, the lightly hair roughened skin of her calves catching on his own, sending whispers of sensation from his toes up to his lips, sending them searching for hers… Strands of her long, brown blond hair caught on his scruff as she moved, sliding across his face and throat like long fingers…She stretched her length against him, sighing, her hands tracing the heavy muscles of his arms, her soft breasts, nipples pebbled and teasing, cushioned against his chest, her pussy, all soft curls and wet, luscious folds, clit a firm nubbin against his belly… 

His cock rose, hard and ready, filling the hot valley between her legs, her ass cheeks parting around him like warm, soft flesh pillows… He caught her face in his hands, and damn, she felt real, solid, wonderful, ‘Charlie…’ 

She smiled down at him, her eyes shadowy and warm in the dark inside the barn, her lips reaching for his…‘Hi Bass…’

………………………………..

Finis… for now…

…………………………………

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AN: hi there, and thank you so much for reading!! I’ve loved writing this story – and I wanted to give it an ending that gave them another beginning too – and that reconnected a little with events in Canon (kind of). There'll be an epilogue soon, where Bass and Charlie get back together... Anyway, wishing you all the best and hope to see you at my next story, cheers, Magpie


	13. Epilogue: Every road leads back to you...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author’s note:  
> Hi there and thank you so much for having a look at this. The story started out based on prompts from the Orgy Armada’s Revolution, The Second Coming but it sort of took on a life of its own and here we are. This is for LemonSupreme and Sparrowhawke though, I couldn’t bear to think of either of you being sad because I’d left Bass and Charlie in the wind in the last chapter– I hope this makes up for it, xx Magpie.
> 
> The title of this chapter is from a song by Diane Warren
> 
> I don’t own any part of Revolution though and am writing this purely for love of the show and its characters.

Two months later.

Miles passed Charlie the binoculars, ‘Can you see him, Charlie?’

She looked and shook her head, ‘No, not yet,’ she kept looking. The clinic was easy to identify – a big red cross hung above the door, but there was no sign of anyone going in or out who looked like her grandpa, not yet anyway.

Willoughby was spread out below them, the high wall around the town looking rough but effective, sheets of tin, bits of metal, car wrecks - anything that’d work was incorporated into the structure… Miles had checked the perimeter out already. There were a couple of holes over on the northern side but otherwise as a defence it was pretty good. 

Miles rolled over onto his side and looked back at the wagon, ‘maybe we should just go on down anyway, we need supplies and if Gene’s not there we’ll just find somewhere in town to hole up until Bass and Aaron get here.’

Charlie nodded, her lips curving into a smile, ‘they’re close, Miles, just a couple of days away now. Bass said that Aaron’s making progress deciphering Dad’s notes too, and he can’t wait to talk to mom about it,’ she passed the glasses back and wriggled back out of sight of the town guards patrolling on the raised walkway before getting up on her knees, ‘he thinks it might even help her get better…’

Miles rolled his eyes then crawled back to join her ‘you do realize how weird this conversation is, don’t you…’

She grinned, ‘maybe…’ She looked down, then back up to him, the grin fading a little, ‘but Rose came by last night, to say goodbye and to wish us luck. She said it’d been getting harder and harder to reach us, that there was something stopping her, something to do with the nanotech…’

He frowned, ‘I’m sorry, kid, ’ 

She nodded, ‘yeah,’ she got to her feet, ‘but then we were lucky to have had her help at all, I mean, who’d believe it if they hadn’t seen what we have?’

Miles got up too, put his hand on her shoulder and squeezed ‘you’re dead right about that, Charlie, and I gotta admit that all this stuff about ghosts and the nano? Way, way out of my comfort zone…’ He let go of her, brushed the front of his pants down and checked the hang of his sword belt, ‘But Rose helped me to see Nora again, and that was pretty damn special, then she helped us put a dent in some of the Patriot’s plans and probably saved a whole truckload of people at the same time, and...’ He pulled her into a hug, ‘she helped make you happy, and that’s a major league achievement as far as I’m concerned.’ he leaned back, eyes warm and his mouth twisted into a grin, ‘although I’m still not sure that I’m happy about who she made you happy with…’

Charlie grinned up at him, ‘would you rather I’d fallen in love with Jason Neville?’ the grin morphed into a smirk ‘I mean, he’s cute, and young…’

He rolled his eyes, ‘God, no…’ his eyes narrowed, lips tight, ‘Tom Neville is ambitious and utterly ruthless, Charlie, and so is his wife, Julia, believe me I know, and their son?’ Miles blew a breath out through his teeth, ‘he’s gotta be one seriously mixed up kid and the last thing I’d want is for you to get caught up in that…’ He cradled her cheek in one large hand, ‘and Steve was right too, you’ve seen too much, been through too much to be satisfied with some sweet young guy whose only experience of the world is the local dance…’ He dropped a kiss on her forehead, his lips dry and warm, ‘I want you to be happy, Charlie, bottom line, and Bass?’ he met her eyes, his very serious…’I wasn’t sure at first but I know him, I’ve seen him in love before and I know that he’d die for you…’ He pulled back a little, ‘Maggie once said to me that if I let you, you’d save me from myself, and from what I’ve seen of Bass since all this started? I think you saved him too, Charlie…’

Charlie’s eyes filled and she swallowed down the lump in her throat…‘He was the one who saved me, Miles, even before the barn. I was almost ready to give up because I didn’t know how to help you, or mom. It was so hard and I was so tired…’ She buried her head in his shoulder, feeling his arms tighten around her, his warmth and steady strength so familiar. Memories flooded through her of their journey together – Chicago, Philadelphia, the Tower… ‘It was so hard, Miles, I was so tired of trying…’

Miles frowned…‘and I nearly got us killed’ he took a deep breath and let it out… ’Anyway, we made it, Charlie, so let’s get your mom into town and find Gene…’ He picked a twig out of her hair and smiled, ‘then it’s time for you to have some time to yourself, to do what you want to do, ok?’

Charlie nodded, ‘First thing I want to do is find us a couple of safe houses, then keep watch for Bass and Aaron…’

Miles chuckled, put an arm round her shoulders and steered her towards the wagon where Rachel was sitting on the bench seat, staring into space, her eyes vacant and a hand absently twirling a strand of dirty hair, ‘Once girls would go dancing or shopping to have fun…’

She shrugged, ‘I’m not other girls, Miles,’ then she thought of something, ‘Do you remember that war clan Bass said they’d seen signs of a couple of weeks back?’

‘Yeah?’

‘Well, they saw them again and apparently they’re sort of heading this way,’ she pulled out her water bottle, put it to her lips and swallowed, her throat moving as she drank… 

He stopped, frowning, ‘Now why would a war clan be coming to Texas?’

Charlie put the stopper back in the bottle and clipped it back on her belt, ‘don’t know, but he said it’s a big one, lots of fighters…’ She looked up at him, ‘and he said Horn was there too, with some Patriot soldiers – but no Texas Rangers’

Miles huffed, ‘so we already know Horn’s a creep, but what’s he doing with a war clan? And what’s Carver’s angle?’ He climbed up into the drivers seat and started the horses off, taking them down onto the road into town. ‘We can do a bit of snooping around while we’re here…’ 

Charlie swung up on the other side of her mom, who smiled vaguely then went back to staring…‘and Stu Redman will have a better chance of doing that than Miles Matheson…’

He chuckled, ‘yeah, and you’re lucky you get to keep your real name, Charlotte’

She laughed and settled back onto the seat, stretching and yawning. Her muscles were aching but in a really, really good way, her whole body feeling very happy after last night, not to mention most of the nights before that. She shifted her butt, there was a little fabric burn on the skin over her tailbone and her jeans felt like sandpaper rubbing on it. There were also more than a couple of bruises from his fingers on her breasts and thighs, although she had a feeling that Bass’d be feeling the nail marks she’d left on his back and butt too… 

What with taking her turn on watch every night and her dream visits from Bass, she was really, really glad they had the wagon and that she wasn’t riding a horse. 

She yawned again… Only two days and he’d be here, two more days…

She and Miles and her mom were here in Willoughby at last, after so long being on the road, and even if Grandpa Gene was working with the Patriots at least they knew about it now and they could watch him…

And Grandpa Gene would know how to help her mom. 

She really hoped he was here... 

…………………………………….

Three days later.

Much to their relief, they’d found Grandpa Gene at work in the clinic and after the shock of seeing them had worn off, he’d taken charge of her mom, insisting that she and Charlie stay in the big, elegant house that Charlie thought she remembered from when she was little. He hadn’t been as happy to see Miles, though, especially once he heard that Ben was dead, and Charlie could see old bitterness, old anger in both their faces. 

She learned that her grandmother was dead too, although Rachel didn’t ask and they didn’t tell her, that would all come later…

But when she walked into the house behind her grandpa and a sleepwalking Rachel, the first things Charlie noticed were the photos of her Grandma and her mom on the wall, then one of her mom and dad together, her dad smiling in that lopsided, warm eyed and kind way he had… Then there were some of Charlie and Danny as children, laughing at the camera, Danny so blond and sweet... Charlie had run her fingers gently over the glass. The frames were polished and shining, the glass clear and clean and the thought of her grandpa caring for them enough to do that made something inside her feel like crying, it was so hard to think of him as working with people like Horn…

Grandpa Gene had seemed to understand why Miles had to be Stu, in fact he’d agreed so quickly Charlie knew for sure then that something was wrong…

Miles had met her eyes and she knew he’d seen it too, and later, when they were getting their gear out of the wagon, they’d agreed that Bass had to stay out of sight, whatever happened. That Gene couldn’t be allowed to see him.

It had been touch and go at first for her mom though – the very first night Rachel had cut her wrists open, saying that she’d broken everything… And whether Grandpa Gene was a patriot or not, Charlie had to admit that he had done his best for his daughter, he hadn’t left her side since, not even to eat. His friend Marion and others from the town had been bringing food for them all, helping with the house, with other patients. Everyone had been very kind. The townspeople had adopted Rachel and Charlie as re-found family, and Stu Redman as their friend – albeit a damaged one, a harmless drunk, but as Charlie watched as he drank himself into a kind of oblivion after Rachel tried to kill herself, she hoped like hell it was just part of the act…

Then this morning, her mom had actually started to talk again, started to eat without prompting, started to look around. They had to keep reminding her that Miles was called Stu though, because it was too dangerous for him to be himself.

Anyway, Grandpa Gene had told Charlie to try to relax, to go for walks…and when she couldn’t drag Miles away from the bar and the local whiskey, she’d gone hunting in the woods and fields around the town by herself, checking out possible safe houses as she went. Finding places to hide was even more urgent now because the name of Sebastian Monroe was on posters all around town, wanted dead or alive, a small fortune in diamonds on his head. 

She sighed as she made her way back to town, a couple of rabbits slung on a stick over her shoulder, the evening sun sending her shadow stretching over the road in front of her.

She really hoped that Bass and Aaron were close, because she was going out of her fucking mind with worry… She hadn’t realised how much she’d come to rely on seeing Bass in her dreams every night, knowing he and Aaron were ok, hearing their news. She’d heard people talking about how it was before the blackout, when they could talk to anyone, wherever and whenever they wanted. It had sounded like magic, unbelievable, until Rose had given her and Bass a way to do it. 

The town gates started to close with the screeching of metal on bitumen, and Charlie jerked out of her day dreams and started running, just scraping in before the deputies closed the town up for the night, smiling and cheeking her way past Simone, one of Gene’s friends who was stationed on the gate, and producing the rabbits to support her story of hunting for a little extra for the pot and to trade. 

Safely inside, she set off along the main street, waving at people she recognised, making sure everyone knew she was heading back to her Grandpa’s place, presumably for the night... Miles had shown her a couple of the gaps he’d spotted in the perimeter wall though and she was planning on heading out later on tonight to check again, because there was no way she was going to be able to sleep until she knew Bass was with her, and safe…

She was passing by one of the narrow alleys that ran between some of the buildings on the street when a tin can rolled out in front of her feet, almost tripping her… 

She dropped to her knees, making as though she was fixing her bootstrap, glancing sideways into the shadows between two buildings. A pair of blue eyes met hers – gleaming out of the dark like two stars, and her whole body tingled, her breath catching in her throat, Bass…

She couldn’t stop the grin that spread across her face then and she looked around, checking the street. There were a couple of people walking up and down but none were looking her way. So she stood up and casually stepped into the alley, the rabbits falling to the ground along with her pack...

Two muscular arms reached out from the shadows, pulling her in against his tall, strong, beautiful body, holding her so tight she could feel every throb of his heart, every part of him pressed against her… 

His lips found her ear…‘Hello, Charlotte’

For a long moment she just held on to him, her arms wrapped around his waist, her face against his shoulder, just glad to have him there at last, to know he was actually, really there, not just a dream. And then he was kissing her, his lips warm, hard, his scruff longer, its softness tickling her cheeks, his tongue meeting hers in a soft, sweet battle of who’d missed who the most...

Charlie snaked her arms up around his neck and pulled him in tighter, wanting him closer, desperate for all of him…

He laughed against her mouth, the vibrations rippling through her.

She pulled back just a little, so she could see his face. He’d grown his beard out – and his hair, it was curling down around his ears, even longer at the back, she smiled running her hands over the sweat sticky curls on his head, the soft curls of his beard. Then she looked around, ‘where’s Aaron?’

Bass looked down at her, his eyes the clear sky blue they went when he was happy, one of his hands playing with her hair, the other stroking her back as though he couldn’t get enough of touching her. ‘He came in a couple of hours ago. He was going to get a room somewhere and catch up with you and Miles in the morning.’ He feathered kisses from her temple down to the side of her mouth.’ We left the wagon and the horses down the road a bit, just in case, with most of the Patriot stuff. Aaron’s got some of it to show Gene, and Ben’s papers for Rachel – and the pendant…’ Bass smiled down at her, tucking a strand of hair back behind her ear, ‘and I’ve been here waiting for you,’

She leaned her face against the base of his strong neck, where it met his shoulders, breathing him in, ‘I missed you so much…’

‘Missed you too, Charlie,’ he ran a hand through her hair, tugging it gently so that she was looking up at him again. ‘That was the longest two months of my life, the only thing that kept me sane was knowing you’d be in my dreams, and my fucking satin sheet, and then when Rose said she couldn’t do it anymore I nearly lost my mind.’

Charlie nodded, ‘me too…’ Then she smiled, ‘I’ve found us a safe house about an hours ride away’ she reached up and pressed her lips to his in a fast, hard kiss, his taste familiar, precious… ‘You can’t stay in town, Bass’

He chuckled, ‘Yeah, I saw the posters, it’s nice to be wanted…’

She kissed him again, letting him go, reluctantly, then bending to pick up her pack and the rabbits…‘I’d better go, Grandpa will be expecting me at the house. I have to let him know I’m ok, but I’ll meet you outside by the gate on the northern side in about half an hour? There’s a way through the wall there.’ 

He nodded, ‘I know, it’s where I came in, thing’s more full of holes than my boots, the town’ll have to fix that…’

‘That’s what Miles said,’ she reached up and cupped his face, running her thumb over his lips… ‘We can’t trust Grandpa, Bass, and Miles is drinking again…’

‘Shit…’ he helped her settle her pack and bow, checking the straps, his fingers lingering on her shoulders, her arms, sliding down to run along the edge of her tank, over her breasts, leaving a trail of fire on her skin, her nipples peaking and goose bumps running down her arms, her clit pulsing with anticipation… ‘We’ll worry about Miles later, right now all I want is to be alone somewhere with you…’

‘Yeah, me too,’ she looked around the alley hopefully but as far as she could see there wasn’t a square foot of it that wasn’t ankle deep in crap… damn…she looked back at him, ‘half an hour, Bass, Ok?’

He kissed her again, a hard, bruising kiss that sent sparks and an electric current slithering down to her toes and back up again, then he let go, ‘I’ll be waiting’

……………………………………..

Back at the house she called in on her mom who was sleeping, Gene dozing in the chair next to her. So she didn’t wake them, just left a note saying that she’d found a good hunting spot and was camping out for the night to watch her traps. She also left a note for Miles, telling him that Aaron and his friend Jimmy had arrived and that Aaron was staying at the guesthouse. They’d worked aliases out weeks ago, although Jimmy wasn’t something she’d have picked for Bass…

Then she shoved some bread, hard cheese and jerky, dried fruit and a bottle of whiskey from Miles’ own supplies into her bag, then ran, keeping to the shadows, making sure no one saw her…

Outside the wall, she looked around searching, where was he? Then a shadow moved and walked towards her, the moon catching the tumbling curls of his hair and the angle of cheekbone sloping down towards his chin, the masculine lines softened by the tighter curls of beard. His eyes were in deep shadow and he looked powerful, dangerous, a bit unearthly, his shoulders very broad in the leather jacket, his legs long and strong in black jeans and heavy boots, the sword belt and gun hanging at his side…

She ran towards him…

………………………………….

The spot she’d found for them was in the basement storm shelter of an abandoned farmhouse a few miles out of town. It was out of the way, quiet and had a bed and some basic facilities. She’d organised things there earlier, just hoping, although she didn’t care if they slept on the ground as long as she was with him. They hid the wagon in an old stable, grabbed the important stuff, taking it with them and tethered the horses out to graze. 

Bass lifted the heavy door and Charlie went in first, Bass’ rifle ready just in case, but everything looked good, the room was empty and brightly lit by the moon through the angled Louvre windows… They didn’t even need to light the candles.

Bass shut the door behind them, threw the bolts and walked towards her, shrugging out of his jacket and kicking his boots off as he came, his sword and gun belts laid carefully but quickly on a table near the bed…

Charlie was doing the same, her jeans and tank already hung over the back of a chair, her boots on the floor and she was down to her panties, her pendant shining silver between her breasts, watching him as he strode towards her, his eyes on hers… electric blue, sending little shocks running from the top of her head to her toes and all parts in between.

By the time he reached her, his shirt was gaping open then thrown off, and his pants were staying up only because he was holding them. The clean, hard lines and curves of his chest and six pack with the little trail of golden hair snaking southwards from his navel to the glimpse of his thick, heavy cock peeking out from lower down were making her mouth water, her heart pound and her pussy fill to bursting with sheer unadulterated lust.

Then he was on her, his lips on hers in a deep, deep kiss, then searing down her neck searching for her breasts, while he tore off his pants with one hand, the other between her legs, the thin fabric of her panties ripping as he yanked them off her, making her gasp as his fingers plundered her wet folds, plunging inside, his thumb working her clit until she was clamped around his hand, her thighs around his arm, her hips angling towards him to give him better access while he licked and sucked his way from nipple to nipple, then to belly button and the soft, sensitive skin of her abdomen.

His body was hot, hard muscled and so big… Fuck she’d missed this… surrounding her with his warm, spicy scent and hot flesh, her senses tingling, her hands desperately searching for handfuls of him, his flesh sliding under hers, slippery with sweat and fierce, engulfing need. 

His eyes found hers, wild, pupils blown to black, that swallowed her up as his lips claimed hers again, his fingers in her pussy replaced by his cock, sliding inside her like a force of nature…unstoppable, inevitable, irresistible…

She lost herself in feeling, her legs wrapped around the strong, thrusting hips and ass, the thickly muscled thighs, one of his hands holding both of hers high above her head so she was stretched out underneath him like a bowstring, the other cupping her face while he kissed her, his lips demanding everything and more, her breasts rubbing against his chest as he moved, his cock sliding in and out, in and out, her flesh opening out for him, then letting him go, opening again, calling him home, wanting him there forever, feeling him lose himself in her too. 

And this time she held him there, deep inside, not wanting him to go, telling him it was ok, that she’d taken care of things, feeling him come inside her for the first time outside of a dream, her own coming hot and hard and total as she felt him fill her up, a wave that took her gasping and helpless into a brilliant darkness.

………………………………………

‘Charlie?’ He’d cradled her into the curve of his body, his cock, still semi hard, nestled in between the cheeks of her ass, the fingers of one hand gently stroking her belly and breasts.

‘Yeah?’ she turned a little, too lazily satisfied to move too much yet, meeting eyes full of promises, and something more than that…’what is it?’

‘I don’t want to be away from you again, I can’t do it...’ He turned them both around a little, so she could see him, ‘your mom’s as safe as she can be right now. She’s got your Grandpa and Miles, Aaron…’ He took a deep breath, ‘I don’t know what use I can be right now, though, hiding out here. Miles has to pull himself together and I don’t think he will as long as you’re here to do things for him’ He sat up a little, ‘and when your mom’s well enough, she and Aaron can work on your Dad’s things, try to find out what he was working on, and they don’t need us to do it…’

Charlie stared up at him ‘so what are you thinking?’

He nodded, ‘ok…these patriots are going to be big trouble, Charlie, for everyone. I can feel it. We’ve seen Horn, seen how crazy he is, and we know from what was in the wagon what they’re capable of. We need intel, we need to know numbers, strategy, what they’re planning, what’s going on in other parts of the country. I’m thinking you and me should go have a look around.’ He smiled, although his eyes were tense, focused, hopeful? ‘You’re a good fighter, a great hunter, and I’m good at killing and a few other things… we’re a good team. I’m thinking we could head down to the Plains Nation to start with, see what’s going on and maybe find us some allies’ 

She studied his face, it was open, unguarded, he wasn’t hiding anything from her… And he was right. Her mom was safe, for the time being anyway. Rachel seemed to be getting better all the time in her father’s care, and if she was honest, Charlie wasn’t needed, in fact her mom barely noticed when she was there. And she’d tried to help Miles, but she thought Bass was right about that too, Miles had to get himself out of his own pit this time. The upshot was that she wasn’t much use here either and the thought of staying around without Bass made her want to curl up and die.

Because most of all, she didn’t want to be away from him either, in fact the last few days had been a hell of worry and tension wondering where he was and if he was ok, missing him as though he’d taken her heart with him, which he had, she knew that now. 

She nodded, her heart pounding, feeling like she was stepping out into a new world, ‘Ok, let’s do it…’  
……………………………………

Three days later.

She and Bass were ready to go. Charlie hadn’t told her mom or Grandpa much, just that she had to go away for a while. Her mom hadn’t said much either, hadn’t even come out to wave her goodbye. Her Grandpa had been called out to an emergency delivery earlier that morning and he wasn’t there either.  
She and Bass had said goodbye to Aaron the night before over a campfire dinner, because he’d started a job teaching at the local school while he waited for Rachel to improve enough to talk to about Ben’s things.

So, Miles is outside with her at the gate, sober, his face a mix of pride and sadness, with a bit of envy in there too maybe?

She shrugged, ‘you know that we need to go, Miles, don’t you…’ Her eyes glanced up at the window where her mom stood, watching. ‘Neither of us are any use here right now’

Miles, stepped forward, his arms pulling her into one of his rare, tight hugs, ‘I know, and I can’t stop you, Charlie, and I don’t even know that I should try, but, you know, try to…’

She grinned, ‘try to keep our stupid to a minimum, I know and we will if you will,’ she tipped her head to where Bass was waiting in the trees, out of sight of the house, Stony and the black saddled up and the satin sheets in their packs, although they were just for fun now. ‘We’ll look out for each other, ok?’ She pulled back, gently and stretched up to kiss him on the cheek, ‘and we’ll see you in a couple of months,’

And then she was walking away, feeling lighter than she had in quite a while…

When she reached them, Bass took her pack and stowed it in Stony’s saddlebags, then pulled her in for a kiss, ‘You ok, Charlie?’

She smiled up at him, and nodded, ‘Yeah’ Then she mounted up, turning then kicking Stony into a canter, calling back over her shoulder, her hair flying and her eyes glinting a challenge, ‘lets go have some fun,’ 

He laughed...

…………………………………………

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AN: There, I hope you enjoyed this as much as I loved writing it… anyway, wishing you all the best and thanks so much for reading!! Cheers, Magpie

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks so much again for reading, I really hope you enjoyed it as much as I did writing it, cheers, Magpie


End file.
